The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans as Donald Trump’s administration continues to claim that South Africa’s government racially discriminates against white minority Afrikaners. The announcement did not specify individuals who were barred from the US. Trump has spent his second term falsely claiming there is a “white genocide” in South Africa and railing against its affirmative action policies.
Since the start of last year, the US has cut aid to South Africa, barred it from this year’s G20 summit in Miami and set up a refugee programme for Afrikaners and other South African racial minorities. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been dismantling refugee and asylum programmes for people fleeing war and persecution. The US ambassador to South Africa, the conservative media activist Leo Brent Bozell III, said on X: “As has been made absolutely clear, the time for endless ‘dialogue’ has run its course … This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter.” South Africa’s foreign ministry said in response that its policies were being misrepresented.
Phiri added: “It is our sovereign right to put in place laws that address the nation’s concern over centuries of racial injustice … South Africa respects that the United States may hold different views regarding particular measures and their implementation.” Afrikaners, who are descended from Dutch and French settlers, ruled South Africa during apartheid. The regime discriminated against and repressed the country’s black majority, while keeping white people safe and wealthy. Since Nelson Mandela took office as South Africa’s first black president in 1994, South African governments have tried to redress the country’s racial inequality, including through Black economic empowerment policies and buying land to redistribute.
These efforts have had limited impact. White South Africans typically have 20 times the wealth of Black people, according to a 2023 article in the Review of Political Economy, an economic journal. Nonetheless, some white South Africans claim they are now the victims of racial discrimination, allegations that US conservatives have long promoted.
Rubio’s visa restrictions announcement criticised land expropriation without compensation. South Africa introduced a law last year that allows the government to seize land without paying for it in specific circumstances, including if it is abandoned or only held for speculation. There is no large-scale expropriation of land.
Among white South Africans who think they are discriminated against, many cite the far-left opposition leader Julius Malema’s repeated use of apartheid-era chant “Kill the Boer”, Boer being another word for Afrikaner. A video featuring the chant was played by Trump when he met South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in the Oval Office last year. The ruling African National Congress party has disavowed the chant, which South African courts have ruled is not meant literally and is therefore not hate speech.
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