Trump to cut funds to South Africa, is it related to Israel?

President Donald Trump has threatened to halt all US aid to South Africa, alleging—without evidence—that the government is seizing land from white farmers.

His remarks touch on a sensitive racial issue while further straining already tense relations between the United States and South Africa, particularly amid disagreements over Israel’s war on Gaza and, in particular, South Africa’s genocide case against Tel Aviv at the International Court of Justice.

“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 

“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” he added.

Trump’s post refers to a recent law introduced by the government of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, permitting limited land expropriation.

The law aims to address racial disparities in land ownership that persist three decades after apartheid’s demise in 1994. Through the scheme, land is sold to the South African government that then redistributes it to black South Africans to address one of the lingering imbalances of the apartheid era. 

The United States obligated nearly $440 million in assistance to South Africa in 2023, the most recent US government data showed. This includes much-needed programmes fighting HIV/AIDS in the African country.

Trump’s remarks are not his first foray into South Africa’s sensitive racial politics. During his first term, he similarly claimed—without evidence—that White farmers in the country were being killed on a “large scale.”

Additionally, Trump’s ally Elon Musk, who comes from South Africa, has repeatedly accused South Africa’s government of anti-White racism, touching on tropes popular with far-right groups in the United States.

In 2023, Musk replied on X to a video of a far-left South African political party singing an old anti-apartheid song, “Kill the Boer (farmer)”, by stating: “They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa.”

“Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”, Musk wrote on X on Monday, in response to a post by Ramaphosa explaining the expropriation law and denying that land had been confiscated.

Many of the far-right groups allied to Trump and that make up his so-called MAGA base are known to be sympathetic to the old apartheid regime of South Africa. These groups have also supported conspiracy theories such as that of the “white genocide”, which claims the country is an example of how non-white races are inherently hostile and inferior to the so-called white race. 

Along with these motivations, South Africa’s leading role in an attempt to prosecute Israel for the crime of genocide against the people of Gaza at the ICJ could play a peripheral role in Trump’s belligerence towards the country.  

Washington, a staunch supporter of Israel during its brutal war on the Palestinian territory, has denied any suggestion that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide.

In January 2024, the ICJ ruled that South Africa’s initial case had shown that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide, something that outraged Tel Aviv and the US. 

During his last term, Trump was considered to be one of the most pro-Israel presidents in history, with him moving the US Embassy to illegally occupied Jerusalem and pushing through the Abraham Accords, which saw several Arab countries normalise relations with Israel without any consideration of its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.