Why Trump is reacting to the Expropriation Act

President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the country’s land policy on Monday after US President Donald Trump’s threat to cut off funding because of what he said were land confiscations.

Trump said the previous day, without citing evidence, that “South Africa is confiscating land” and “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly”. He would cut funding until the matter was investigated, he said.

What is Trump talking about?

The US president did not specify who was being “treated badly”, but the land reference suggests he is referring to white landowners who still possess three quarters of SA’s freehold farmland.

This contrasts with 4% owned by blacks, according to the latest 2017 land audit, who make up 80% of the population, compared with about 8% for whites. The Expropriation Act, signed last month is partly aimed at redressing this imbalance.

No land has yet been expropriated under the act.

How did we get here?

In the 30 years that the ANC has been in power, some land restitution has happened under a “willing buyer, willing seller” model, but critics have denounced it as painfully slow and accuse white landowners of hoarding.

What is the Expropriation Act and why is it controversial?

The law has been the subject of lengthy and often acrimonious debate for years. It repeals a past expropriation that was used to seize land from black communities under apartheid.

The DA argues that land expropriation is unconstitutional, violates basic property rights and will deter badly needed foreign investment.

However, the party put out a statement on Monday expressing concern over Trump’s threat and correcting a misconception that the act allows land to be seized arbitrarily.

After years of exhaustive parliamentary debate, the law is carefully worded. It forbids seizing land unless it can be demonstrated it is in the public interest. It also requires authorities to first try to reach an agreement with the owner.

What can Trump do to SA?

The US committed nearly $440m in assistance to SA in 2023, according to the most recent US government data.

Ramaphosa said US funding accounted for 17% of SA’s HIV/Aids programme but it was reliant on “no other significant funding” from the US.

US data backs that up, with $315m going to HIV/Aids, and much smaller sums going to other health issues, farming, education, trade policy and energy.

A much bigger worry than aid is trade: a quarter of SA’s $15bn exports to the US get preferential tariffs under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa), according to a 2023 Agoa fact sheet, while SA estimates Agoa makes up 2% of its total exports.

‘White genocide’

During his first administration, Trump said the US would investigate large-scale killings of white farmers in SA and violent takeovers of land.

There is no evidence of such killings or takeovers of land, of the sort that did happen in Zimbabwe in 2000.

In 2023, Trump’s ally, SA-born Elon Musk accused the government of seeking a “genocide of white people”.

That notion, which circulates in far-right chat rooms, attempts to link land reform to murders of white farmers during robberies, saying the killings are acts of state-sponsored ethnic cleansing aiming to scare them off their land.

Of the roughly 20,000 murders committed in SA every year, about 50 of them are of white farmers.

Most of the victims are black.

Reuters