The latest tension flared up a few days after Trump’s inauguration last month when South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Expropriation Bill, which allows the government to confiscate land without compensation in certain circumstances.
Trump’s response came last week when he threatened to cut future funding over what he termed “terrible things, horrible things” the country’s leadership was doing.
The US president further accused South Africa, without any basis in fact, of “confiscating land” and “doing things that are perhaps far worse than that”.
He doubled down in the face of the South African government’s vehement rebuttal and signed an executive order last Friday freezing aid.
This adds up to nearly $440m (£353m) – the amount of aid reportedly allocated in 2023 – though the US embassy in South Africa has subsequently said that funding from Pepfar, an American programme countering the global spread of HIV, will not be affected, external, adding the caveat that “not all Pepfar activities will resume”.
South Africa is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Pepfar, which contributes about 17% to its HIV/Aids programme in which around 5.5 million people receive anti-retrovirals.
In his executive order, Trump also accused South Africa of a “shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights” and taking “aggressive positions” against the US and its ally Israel in its ICJ case.
In addition to the aid freeze, Trump offered to help refugees from the Afrikaner community, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers, to settle in the US.
His stance has played into the hands of conservative Afrikaner lobby groups, including AfriForum and Solidarity, which want the government repeal what it calls “race-based laws” such as affirmative action and black economic empowerment.
This chimes with views by Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who was born in South Africa. He questioned on X why Ramaphosa had “openly racist ownership laws”.
This is not the first time South Africa’s land reform policy has drawn Trump’s ire.
In 2018, during his first presidency, he accused South African authorities of the “large-scale killing of farmers” and asked his then secretary of state to look into the matter of the government “seizing land from white farmers”.
While Trump’s remarks sparked a backlash at the time, Dr Oscar van Heerden, a political analyst at the University of Johannesburg, told the BBC there had “never been this kind of radical action taken to the point of an executive order being signed”.
With their relationship now in a precarious state – both countries are weighing up their next move.
On the trade front, Donald MacKay, CEO of Johannesburg-based trade consulting firm XA Global Trade Advisors, said that while the US was one of South Africa’s biggest partners, it was not its “closest trading partner”.
South Africa exports a variety of minerals to the US, including platinum, iron and manganese.
It also one of the largest exporters under Agoa, generating about $2.7bn in revenue in 2023, mostly from the sale of vehicles, jewellery and metals.
