Anadolu Staff
12 February 2025•Update: 12 February 2025
JOHANNESBURG
South Africa said Tuesday that it is still looking forward to an opportunity to engage with the administration of US President Donald Trump to understand the actual grievance they have against the country.
“We believe that they know there are no land seizures in South Africa and they know the truth,’’ Vincent Magwenya, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, told national broadcaster SABC.
Magwenya said they are now at a point where they do not believe that the US’s issue has only to do with land seizures or the so-called killing of white farmers or people in country.
The US “must just be bold enough to put their issues on the table, and then we can engage on those issues,’’ he said, adding “we are hoping that at some point soon, we will be able to have that engagement, and the real issues will be placed on the table instead of the peddling of lies that we have refuted time and again.’’
Last week, Trump issued an executive order freezing all US financial aid to South Africa, citing a recently passed land appropriation law and the country’s genocide case against Israel.
‘‘In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation,’’ Trump said in his order.
Trump said the Expropriation Act “follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.”
South Africa says Trump’s accusations are lies, distortions and misinformation about the country.
President Ramaphosa recently signed the expropriation bill into law, which will allow the state to expropriate land without compensation if it is “just, equitable and in the public interest.” The law aims to address apartheid's past injustices, the government said.
Pretoria said it has only received US aid for HIV/AIDS prevention in the country.
Trump's executive order also cites South Africa's involvement in bringing Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and Pretoria's closer ties with Iran as reasons for cutting aid.
“The United States cannot support the government of South Africa’s commission of rights violations in its country or its ‘undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests,” it said.
South Africa was the first country to take Israel to the ICJ over its genocidal war on Gaza, in which a ceasefire has been in effect between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas since Jan. 19 after more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment which has killed nearly 48,200 Palestinians and devastated the enclave.
