News in brief:
– US President Donald Trump has announced a fast-tracked citizenship offer for South African farmers citing safety concerns.
– He criticised South Africa’s land reform policies and has halted all federal funding to the country.
United States President Donald Trump has announced a sped-up citizenship offer for South African farmers who are afraid for their safety.
According to a post on the Truth Social platform, which has appeared on several other social media platforms on Friday, Trump had lamented the situation he believes White farmers face.
“South Africa is being terrible, plus, to long time Farmers in the country,” he wrote. “They are confiscating their LAND and FARMS, and MUCH WORSE THAN THAT.”
He reiterated stopping federal funding to the nation, which he tagged ‘a bad place to be’ in at the moment, before following with the immediate offer of rapid citizenship.
“Any Farmer (with family!) from South Africa, seeking to flee that country for reasons of safety, will be invited into the United States of America with a rapid pathway to Citizenship,” the US President said.
Although most of his reform policies have been around cracking down on immigration, it appears that the administration is willing to open its borders to the white Afrikaner minority, descendants of Dutch and French settlers, according to a BBC report.
The group have been the target of a new land reform plan that seeks to reduce their majority ownership of agricultural land (about 72% in 2017) in the country. In 2025, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act that allows the government to legally take private property for public use.
Experts have argued that the main point of contention is the ‘lack of compensation.’ However, this is a conditional part of the policy that mentions several reasons, like land lying idle, and so on.
Meanwhile, Ramaphosa has retorted that the law was the best for the public interest. One article even argues that as of February 2025, the government had not seized any land without compensation.
