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President Trump has repeatedly attacked South Africa during his second term, accusing its government of seizing land from white farmers as part of a systemic persecution of Afrikaners, the white ethnic minority that led the apartheid regime.
It’s an accusation that skips over the facts, but one that has shaped his administration’s decision to welcome white Afrikaners as refugees — and its animus toward the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, whom Trump is meeting with in Washington today.
It also reminds me of a story I reported about six years ago, when I found myself face to face with a white farmer preparing for the government to take his land.
This did not happen in South Africa. It was in South Texas, and it was because of Trump.
And it’s a reminder of how a president who has railed against the state’s power to seize land overseas has long been quick to embrace similar tools at home, both as a developer and then in the White House.
‘Take the land’
At the root of Trump’s claims of discrimination is a law Ramaphosa signed this year that allows the government to seize privately held land — without providing compensation — when it’s in the public interest. The law is part of the South African government’s efforts to chip away at the racial inequities shaped by decades of apartheid rule.
Legal experts say the seizures are likely to be rare. And the law provides for judicial review, giving property owners an opportunity to challenge any effort to take their land. That has not stopped Trump from falsely accusing South Africa of “confiscating land” as he cut off foreign aid to the nation this year.
