On February 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting US aid to South Africa and offering refugee status to white South African farmers, claiming the country’s new Expropriation Act has enabled racial discrimination. The order represents a significant shift in US-South Africa relations and has raised questions about both countries’ approaches to addressing historical injustices.

South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2024, which allows for land seizure without compensation under specific circumstances, has become a flashpoint for controversy. While the South African government frames it as a necessary tool for land reform in a country still grappling with Apartheid’s legacy, Trump’s order characterizes it as inherently discriminatory.

To understand this complex issue and its implications, this explainer will examine South Africa’s historical context, the actual content of the new law, and the potential impact of the US response.

What do we need to know about South African history to understand the current land-reform controversy?

South Africa is not alone in its struggles to reckon with a national history rife with racial violence and discrimination. One thing that makes the country’s struggles unique is the recency of its segregationist legislation. Apartheid, a comprehensive system of racial segregation and discrimination, was the law of the land until 1994. Only 30 years have passed since the country’s white minority was afforded an officially privileged status, at the cost of the fundamental rights of the country’s Black majority.

Implemented in 1948, Apartheid built on many policies established by earlier colonial regimes. A core element of the national segregationist agenda was the Natives Land Act of 1913, which restricted Black South African land ownership to just 7% of the country’s territory (expanded to 13% in 1936). The law established “reserves” for Black South Africans, beyond which they were forbidden to rent or buy land. This resulted in mass forced evictions and removals of Black land owners. The Act created the foundation for territorial segregation and economic discrimination that would shape South Africa throughout the 20th century.

White South Africans were also given privileged status with respect to education, jobs, freedom of movement, and voting rights. After decades of resistance led by figures like Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, combined with international pressure and sanctions, apartheid ended in the early 1990s, culminating in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. But while policies can be subject to swift changes, their historical impacts are another story.

How have these policies affected land ownership in South Africa?

A 2017 land ownership audit found that white South Africans possessed some 72% of the country’s farming and agricultural land, while Black South Africans possessed a total of 4%. For context, a 2022 census revealed that white South Africans accounted for 7.3% of the country’s population, while Black South Africans accounted for 81.4%.

It bears noting that some analysts have cast doubt on these figures. In a 2022 op-ed, Johann Kirsten and Wandile Shihlobo of Stellenbosch University suggested that some of the audit’s key findings were flawed, and argued that while white farmers do own a significant portion of agricultural land, the overall picture of land reform is more complex than often portrayed. The authors asserted that about 24% of farmland has actually been redistributed or had land rights restored through various mechanisms, including both government programs and private purchases.

In any case, the fact remains that land ownership in South Africa continues to favor the country’s diminishing white population.

What steps has South Africa taken toward reforming land ownership disparities?

Since Apartheid ended in 1994, the South African government has endeavored to rebalance land-ownership through restitution for those dispossessed under Apartheid, land redistribution, and land-tenure-system reform.

The cornerstone of these efforts was the Restitution of Land Rights Act, which became the first law passed by the democratic parliament in 1994. The Act created the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights and the Land Claims Court as key institutions to process and adjudicate claims, while providing for various forms of redress including land restoration, alternative land, or financial compensation. The legislation represented the new democracy’s first major step toward addressing historical land injustices, setting criteria for who could claim restitution and establishing procedures for how claims would be investigated, negotiated, and settled.

Land reform efforts have continued in various forms ever since, including through social policy and incentives, as well as the legislation that triggered Trump’s ire.

What is the new expropriations law?

On January 23, 2025, after years of deliberation by various branches of government, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act. In short, the law establishes how the South African government can legally take private property for public use.

This is hardly a novel concept; eminent domain laws are ubiquitous around the globe. The US Constitution, for instance, provides that the government can seize private property for public use so long as “just compensation” is provided.

Where South Africa’s law has met with controversy is in its carveout for expropriations without compensation.

Under what conditions can the government seize private property without compensation?

The South African government can seize private property without compensation under limited circumstances. Section 12(3) of the Expropriation Act states:

It may be just and equitable for nil compensation to be paid where land is expropriated in the public interest, having regard to all relevant circumstances, including but not limited to—

(a) 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 its market value;

(b) where an organ of state holds land that it is not using for its core functions and is not reasonably likely to require the land for its future activities in that regard, and the organ of state acquired the land for no consideration;

(c) notwithstanding registration of ownership in terms of the Deeds Registries Act, 1937 (Act No. 47 of 1937), where an owner has abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so;

(d) where the market value of the land is equivalent to, or less than, the present value of direct state investment or subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the land.

In other words, land can be seized without compensation if the owner is not using it, and is rather just waiting for property values to rise in order to sell at a profit; if a government agency acquired the land for free and has no real use for it; if the land has been abandoned; or if government spending to sustain the land has surpassed its market value. Notably, these are examples and the list is not exhaustive. But in practice, the government has yet to seize any land without compensation.

What has Trump said about South Africa’s land-reform efforts?

The Trump administration has cast the law in a different light. In an executive order issued on February 7, two weeks after the Expropriation Act became law, the White House described the law as having been enacted “to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation.” Afrikaners are white South Africans, specifically those who are descendants of Dutch colonialists who settled in the country’s territory in the 17^th century.

Citing what he sees as South Africa’s “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,” as well as the country’s track record of speaking out against US ally Israel, Trump vowed to block all aid and assistance to South Africa, and to absorb white South Africans seeking refuge from “racially discriminatory property confiscation.”

It bears noting that the Expropriation Act makes no racial distinction with respect to property seizures. 

The reasons underpinning Trump’s fixation on South African land reform are anyone’s guess. It of course bears noting that the current Trump presidency has been deeply influenced by South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, who has been vocal in his criticism of the country’s “racist ownership laws.” There’s also the fact that upon taking office in January, Trump launched an “America First” foreign policy and abruptly slashed aid around the world. He also waged war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that aimed to rectify historical race-based injustices. In other words, neither his decision to cut aid nor his disregard for efforts to reckon with historical injustices are new, though the order does beg the question of how interfering with a foreign nation’s domestic policies align with his “America First” ethos.

Regardless of the rationale, the order will bite. Over the past 20 years, the US has consistently provided hundreds of millions in aid to South Africa. In particular, the cuts can be expected to affect the country’s population of eight million people living with HIV — the highest such population in the world. In a recent interview with the AP, South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that before Trump resumed the presidency, the US had funded nearly 20% of the country’s HIV/AIDS program.

The clash over South Africa’s Expropriation Act highlights the complex challenges nations face when attempting to address historical injustices through legislative reform. While South Africa frames its law as a measured approach to longstanding land inequality, focusing on unused and abandoned property rather than racial identity, Trump’s response frames it as targeting white farmers specifically. As the aid cuts begin to take effect, millions of South Africans dependent on US-funded health programs may find themselves caught in the crossfire of this ideological dispute over how — or whether — to rectify the lingering effects of apartheid.