{"id":41604,"date":"2025-02-04T08:05:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T08:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/?p=41604"},"modified":"2025-02-04T08:05:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T08:05:57","slug":"trump-accuses-south-africa-of-confiscating-land-cuts-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/trump-accuses-south-africa-of-confiscating-land-cuts-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump accuses South Africa of &#8216;confiscating&#8217; land, cuts funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-41608 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trump-South-Africa-e1738656314607.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"356\" \/>Washington, DC: 04 Jan 2025 &#8211; US President Donald Trump announced he was cutting off all future funding to South Africa for &#8220;confiscating&#8221; land and &#8220;treating certain classes of people very badly,&#8221; an accusation his South African counterpart rejected on Monday.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The land issue in South Africa has long been divisive, with efforts to redress the inequality of white-rule drawing criticism from conservatives including South Africa-born Elon Musk, the world&#8217;s wealthiest person and a powerful Trump adviser.<\/p>\n<p>South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last month signed a bill that stipulates the government may, in certain circumstances, offer &#8220;nil compensation&#8221; for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,&#8221; Trump wrote Sunday on his Truth Social platform.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\">\n<div id=\"aswift_2_host\">&#8220;I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!&#8221; Trump wrote.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Pretoria argues the bill does not allow the government to expropriate property arbitrarily and must first seek to reach agreement with the owner.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>However, some groups fear a situation similar to the Zimbabwe government&#8217;s seizure of white-owned commercial farms, often without compensation, after independence in 1980.<\/p>\n<p>Later, in a briefing with journalists, Trump said that South Africa&#8217;s &#8220;leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things&#8221; without giving examples.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"DLXaAQNnx4\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-aug-sep-2024\/\">Pakistan in the World \u2013 Aug \/ Sep 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Pakistan in the World \u2013 Aug \/ Sep 2024&#8221; &#8212; Pakistan In the World\" src=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-aug-sep-2024\/embed\/#?secret=oe8sWwKc4S#?secret=DLXaAQNnx4\" data-secret=\"DLXaAQNnx4\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div id=\"aswift_3_host\">&#8220;So that&#8217;s under investigation right now. We&#8217;ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing &#8212; they&#8217;re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually they&#8217;re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8220;The South African government has not confiscated any land,&#8221; Ramaphosa responded in a statement Monday, adding that &#8220;the recently adopted Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is a &#8220;constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The US remains a key strategic political and trade partner for South Africa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"EABjRqSbhr\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-this-week-from-the-office-of-spokesperson-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-islamabad\/\">Pakistan in the World &#8211; This Week &#8211; From the Office of Spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs Islamabad<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Pakistan in the World &#8211; This Week &#8211; From the Office of Spokesperson Ministry of Foreign Affairs Islamabad&#8221; &#8212; Pakistan In the World\" src=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-this-week-from-the-office-of-spokesperson-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-islamabad\/embed\/#?secret=Rnt3w3453z#?secret=EABjRqSbhr\" data-secret=\"EABjRqSbhr\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\">\n<div id=\"aswift_4_host\"><strong>&#8211; South African billionaires &#8211;<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Since then courts have adjudicated on a handful of disputes and, after exhaustive processes, returned land to previously displaced owners.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>According to the South African government, the 1913 Natives Land\u00a0Act saw thousands of Black\u00a0families forcibly removed from their land\u00a0by the apartheid regime.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The delicate issue has been a particular rallying point for the right, with various conservative figures including Musk and right-wing journalist Katie Hopkins championing the cause of white land-owners.<\/p>\n<div class=\"google-auto-placed ap_container\">\n<div id=\"aswift_5_host\">Musk was born in Pretoria on June 28, 1971, to an engineer father and a Canadian-born model mother, leaving the country in his late teens. The formal policy of apartheid lasted until 1990, and multi-racial elections were held in 1994.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Trump has surrounded himself with powerful Silicon Valley figures who came of age in apartheid southern Africa, such as David Sacks, his newly-appointed artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, who co-founded PayPal along with Musk.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Billionaire Peter Thiel &#8212; another PayPal cofounder, who introduced Trump to his vice president, J.D. Vance &#8212; also lived in southern Africa, including time in Namibia, which was then controlled by Pretoria.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>He has previously been accused of supporting an apartheid system that violently subjugated the Black majority of South Africa to uphold white rule and economic control, something a spokesman denied on his behalf.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"6mQa5D2Xzp\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-november-2024\/\">Pakistan in the World \u2013 November 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Pakistan in the World \u2013 November 2024&#8221; &#8212; Pakistan In the World\" src=\"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/pakistan-in-the-world-november-2024\/embed\/#?secret=41WbeJQLiI#?secret=6mQa5D2Xzp\" data-secret=\"6mQa5D2Xzp\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, DC: 04 Jan 2025 &#8211; US President Donald Trump announced he was cutting off all future funding to South Africa for &#8220;confiscating&#8221; land and &#8220;treating certain classes of people very badly,&#8221; an accusation his South African counterpart rejected on Monday. The land issue in South Africa has long been divisive, with efforts to redress [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[117,532,57,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41604"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41609,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41604\/revisions\/41609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}