Among the latest flurry of executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, whose stated intent stands in direct contrast to its apparent reality, is the freezing of aid to South Africa, citing the country’s land expropriation law.
Elon Musk, the right-hand man to the 47th president and head of the president’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has repeatedly mentioned the law in recent social media posts, describing it as a threat to South Africa’s White minority.
Musk was born to an affluent South African family in Pretoria before immigrating to Canada, where he became a citizen through his mother. So, with his roots and significant financial interests based in South Africa, it’s no wonder that he’s been whispering in the president’s ear.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act last month, which allows the government to take land where it is not being used or where redistributing the land would be in the public interest. He further cites the goal of addressing some of the injustices from the country’s racist apartheid era, when Blacks were stripped of their land and forced to live in segregated areas designated for non-Whites.
But you have to wonder, with White people making up about 7 percent of South Africa’s population, yet owning more than 70 percent of the farmland, how much more do White South Afrikaners believe they’re entitled to own, and why is No. 47 so interested?
As for American interests, the White House falsely accused the South African government of doing “terrible things,” and said that land has been confiscated from “certain classes”—also not true. To be clear, the South African government says it continues to protect and respect private property rights and notes that No. 47’s description of the law is rife with misinformation and “distortions.”
The White House wants us to believe that it’s concerned about the impact of the Expropriation Act and how it amounts to discrimination against the country’s White minority. In fact, to illustrate our concern for those who face discrimination, it has even announced a program to resettle White South African farmers and their families as refugees.
If only the president were equally concerned about refugees from Haiti, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Somalia and Sudan.
It couldn’t be their skin color that counts as the reason why they haven’t been invited to wave at Lady Liberty and find safe haven in America, could it?
Closer to home, if only the occupant of the White House were equally concerned about the discrimination that Black Americans have experienced for more than 400 years.
No explanation needed there—we get it.
(Reprinted from the Washington Informer)