Trump’s Attacks on South Africa Are Wrong and Not in the True Interest of the USA

With forbearance I have followed the early days of our new president, Donald Trump. His actions to end the war in Ukraine are commendable. However, I am now compelled to speak out against his unjustified attacks on South Africa and cutting off of aid to this important nation on the African continent. In this article I will address President Trump’s wrongheaded policy against South Africa.

Contrary to his claims of uprooting Washington’s establishment and draining the swamp, President Trump, appears to have become influenced by followers of the so called rules-based international order when it comes to America’s foreign policy to Africa. Thus far, it appears that President Trump has not fully extricated himself from the “zero-sum” mindset that has dominated Washington’s ideology for decades. What is desperately needed now is the qualities of statesmanship, displayed in the previous century by Presidents John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt. The true self interests of the United States lie in making the “World Great.” President Roosevelt envisioned in his Grand Design, a better world after World War II, in which the U.S. would play a leadership role. He created the original International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which he intended to be a vehicle for lending capital to developing nations in Africa in particular. This bank, commonly known today as the World Bank, has failed to implement President Roosevelt’s original intention.

U.S. Targets South Africa
President Trump under the influence of Elon Musk, the cost-cutter in chief, has issued an Executive Order, Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa in response to alleged land expropriations in South Africa.

President Trump issued this Executive Order on February 7, which states that the United States shall halt foreign aid or assistance delivered or provided to South Africa, because South Africa is undermining United States foreign policy, which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests.

Let me be bluntly honest: I know that the nation of South Africa is no security threat to United States or our allies. The real crime, if you will, committed by the government of South Africa, is not to bow to the will of the United States and the so called rules based international order.

Naledi Pandor, then Prime Mister of South Africa, at the International Court of Justice (courtesy of dawnmena.org)

Specifically, South Africa has provided international, moral, political, and economic leadership in the following spheres of its foreign policy:

1. South Africa’s courageous leadership in bringing before the International Court of Justice, the charge of Israeli genocide against Palestinians living in Gaza, which is specifically cited in the Executive Order: South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice.

• South Africa’s membership as the first African nation to join the BRICS, which is emerging with its twenty-two members and partners, as an institution of growing influence and leadership of the new dynamic of the Global South. President Trump falsely views the BRICS as an enemy of the U.S., having twice said he will destroy the BRICS with a “100 percent tariff” and on February 14, declared that the BRICS is dead.

• South Africa is a strong ally of China on the continent, and as a member of the BRICS has a close relationship to Russia. Iran, another target of the rules-based order is also a member of the BRICS. There are many “China-hawks” in President Trump’s cabinet and among close allies, who following in the footsteps of Presidents Obama and Biden, erroneously assert that China is the number one enemy of the U.S. However, South Africa’s relations with member nations of the BRICS can be an advantage for U.S. policy.

President Trump’s actions are echoed by threats against South Africa from the new U.S. Congress.

Four Republican Congressmen wrote in a letter to President Trump: …we urge you to revoke South Africa’s preference benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act [AGOA]…We would also suggest that you consider suspending diplomatic ties unless the government [South Africa] is prepared to engage constructively with your own.” (Reported by CNBC Africa.)

AGOA is a is a long standing trade arrangement to boost exports from emerging economies to the U.S. that has been turned into a political weapon. President Biden immorally removed Ethiopia from AGOA, and now Trump is being lobbied to imitate his predecessor by perpetrating the same actions against South Africa. This is a dangerously misguided policy that is harmful to the people of South Africa and the United States. South Africa receives $440 million in aid, of which $250 million is allocated for PEPFAR to contain the spread of HIV-AIDS in Africa. This aid has now been cut off. The U.S. is also the second largest trading partner with South Africa, after China.

Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has deliberately snubbed the G-20 Summit of Foreign Ministers, meeting in Johannesburg. This is especially troubling given that South Africa is the current president of the G-20, which is meeting on the African continent for the very first time.

Land Expropriation Smoke Screen
There is no ongoing campaign for mass expropriation of land belonging to white South African farmers. Full stop! As reported by EIR News, John Steenhusien, parliamentary leader of the white-led Democratic Alliance, a coalition party of the government, said on February 8: There is no land being expropriated on a mass scale from anybody in South Africa without compensation. Trump’s Executive Order also states: the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation. Steenhusien, Minister of Agriculture, in the coalition government, opposes efforts to encourage white farmers to leave South Africa; their homeland. This sentiment is echoed by other Afrikaner organizations that do not want white farmers to emigrate.

On February 11, Helen Zille Chairwoman, of the Democratic Alliance said: He [Trump] was wrong to say land is currently being expropriated.

The Expropriation Act of 2024 is to develop land underutilized. According to a recent report, Assessing key aspects of the new Expropriation Act, land can be expropriated for only two purposes:

1) For a public purpose. The property concerned will be used by or for the benefit of the public. Examples would be when land is required for building a dam, a road, or a public nature reserve.

2) That it is in the public interest. The public interest includes the nation’s commitment to land reform and to reforms to bring about equitable access to all South Africa’s natural resources. To redress the results of past racial discriminatory laws or practices.

According to the act, compensation would be paid except in the rarest of cases such as: Where the land is not being used, and the owner’s main purpose is not to develop the land or use it to generate income but to benefit from appreciation of the market value. In other words, speculation.

Map of Cecil Rhodes’ vision of British dominion from the Cape to Cairo (courtesy of reserchgate.net) . Cecil John Rhodes was an English mining magnate, who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.

Who Is Fooling Whom?
While white South African landowners and their supporters in the U.S. get all worked-up over the Expropriation Act, their complaints are ahistorical. They willfully ignore the history of South Africa, choosing to conveniently overlook what was done to black South Africans in the 19^th and 20^th centuries under British Imperialism, epitomized by that racist pig, Cecil Rhodes. From 1913 on, land was “legally” taken without compensation from black South Africans, who under apartheid were forbidden to own land. BBC World News writes: The Natives’ Land Act of 1913 defined less than one-tenth of South Africa as Black “reserves” and prohibited any purchase of land by Blacks outside the reserves.

Think! How is it possible that 4.5 million white South Africans, approximately 7% of the population, own over 70% of farms owned by individual farmers, while Colors, Blacks and Indians own 24% of the farms. Are white South Africans superior to non-white South Africans?

Newsweek reports in their Feb 14 article on South Africa, that according to a 2017 state audit, white land owners controlled 72% of agricultural land, while black land owners only hold 4%. The disparity is extremely stark considering black people make up 80% of the country’s population whereas white people account for around 8%. Newsweek also refutes the allegation that government is facilitating mass murders of white farmers. They report the rate of murder among people involved in farming activities in 2015-16 to be 5.6 murders per 100,000, significantly lower than the country’s general murder rate of 33.9 murders per 100,000.

In the same article they write that an ‘expropriating authority may not expropriate…arbitrarily or for a purpose other than public purpose or in the public interest.’ It also states that land cannot be expropriated without compensation if it is currently being used. This means residential property, commercial property, farms, and mines are exempt from expropriation without compensation.

Contrary to fake news and claims by white South African farmers and their sympathizers, there is no mass murder of white farmers, or mass expropriation of their land, organized by the government.

President Trump speaks vaguely of white farmers being treated poorly in South Africa, without providing any evidence.

Malema-Musk Genocide Shell Game.
The allegation of genocide against white South African farmers supported by the South African government is highly inflammatory and is completely untrue. No evidence has been provided to substantiate this outrageous claim.

The accusation of genocide is dangerous, since it has been used in other nations for attempting regime change of elected governments.

The United Nations defines genocide as the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Given the extensive networks that Afrikaners have in the U.S. including the Congress and Executive Branch, if there was an actual campaign to kill millions of South African whites, it would be well publicized.

Instead of any proof of genocide, we have the Malema-Musk side show, manipulating public opinion to create a discord between the governments of South Africa and the U.S.

Elon Musk, one of President Trump’s closest advisors, wrote in his July 2023 Twitter: They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa. Musk tweeted to President Cyril Ramaphosa: why do you say nothing?

The “they” he is referring to is the movement of Julius Malema, who provocatively chants, “Kill the Farmer, Kill the Boer.” The Boers were the early settlers from Europe (not Britain) to South Africa. Today, the term is used as a euphemism for all white farmers.

Julius Malema is the black South African leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters. Elon Musk is a white South African adviser to President Trump. In their public performances they appear as antagonists, putting on a show for the gullible. In reality, they could be kissing cousins. Each one playing their “assigned” role as a performer in a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy. The audience gets sucked into believing the characters on stage, until tragedy befalls at the end. The intended victims of this tragic play are the people of South Africa. This is no conspiracy. Malema and Musk do not have to communicate with each other. They just have to be allowed to perform their character with sincerity, in this staged drama, to manipulate the uninformed and credulous. Sadly, their words have real consequences as we are witnessing today with President Trump’s wrongheaded and harmful Executive Order.

The dearth of electricity on the African Continent compared to Europe is a starling image of the lack of infrastructure. courtesy of es.pinterest.com)

Make Africa Great
If the current U.S. president were more thoughtful, he would add to the MAGA a new acronym, MAG–Make Africa Great.

If President Trump and his coterie of wealthy business executives, who claim to be so smart at making money, why are they so dumb about the economic potential of Africa?

Africa’s expanding population is projected to reach 2.4 billion people by 2050. It will also have the largest number of people who would be eligible to join the workforce. The continent is also endowed with abundant resources and critical minerals. There is little doubt that the African continent will be the center of trade and commerce on the planet within the next generation. As a result, it will also become a predominant focus of foreign policy. Policies initiated by the U.S. today. towards Africa nations, will affect the future of the African continent, and implicitly all nations on the planet.

Africa’s huge deficit in hard infrastructure has prevented African nations from becoming sovereign industrialized countries. Most consequential is the absolute paucity of electricity and the absence of a transcontinental railroad system. The quality and size of an economy’s infrastructure platform delimits the economic growth of that nation. Greatly expanding vitally necessary infrastructure across Africa is the most obvious investment for industrial capitalists to assist African economies in becoming profitable. Think about the billions of African consumers. Think about the potential of all the nascent industries that can develop in numerous fields of manufacturing and agriculture. Technologically advanced American industries can become the suppliers to the needs of expanding African economies. Long-term investments in African nations will yield profits from physical growth, as opposed to speculation and the imposition of unfair terms of trade.

African nations need extended loans with interest rates of 2-3 percent directed to investment in infrastructure.

In the first administration, President Trump created the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). The mission of the DFC and its funding practices have to be greatly expanded. Its lending capacity has to be increased to meet the needs of potential investment in infrastructure throughout Africa. The DFC should become a bank for development, capable of lending hundreds of billions of dollars of long-term loans with low interest rates.

One of the stated goals of the many China hawks of the new administration, is to counter China in Africa. President Trump should break-free from the dangerously idiotic “zero-sum” axiom held dearly by the collapsing rules-based order. Instead, the U.S. should compete with China in fostering real economic growth in Africa. President Trump should lead the U.S. in building his own “beautiful” equivalent of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road, if the U.S. still has sufficient productive capacity. Better yet, why not have the U.S. collaborate with China in eliminating poverty and hunger in less developed nations, and bring about a “golden age” of industrial economic growth for the entire planet?

If President Trump adopts this, or an equivalent mission, then he will understand that South Africa, because of its earned political and moral stature in the Global South, can become a beneficial partner. South Africa, a member of the BRICS, endowed with rich mineral wealth, and the largest industrialized economy in Africa (although still small), is potentially a valuable ally of the U.S.

I say to President Trump: you have already up-ended the Anglo-American Transatlantic Establishment and the ideologically corrupt NATO alliance. Why not become the American leader, who advances economic growth in Africa, superseding the 60 year old failed U.S. policy of simply giving aid, but no development? This would leave a wonderful legacy of your second term as president.