The US has announced visa restrictions targeting people it accuses of discriminating against South Africa's white minority, in the latest escalation of tensions between the two countries. The Trump administration has criticised South Africa over several issues, including policies aimed at addressing racial inequality that it says discriminate against Afrikaners, descendants mainly of Dutch and French settlers. South Africa has repeatedly denied the claim.
"The South African government has not adequately addressed the previously laid out concerns," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement announcing the restrictions on Tuesday. He said the visa restrictions would target those who promote "race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation in South Africa." Rubio did not immediately name any individuals targeted by the restrictions. Ramaphosa struggles to mend fences with Trump Is there a genocide of white South Africans as Trump claims?
Relations between the two countries have been on a downward spiral since President Donald Trump returned to office early last year, with the US leader cutting aid, expelling the South African ambassador and offering "refuge" to white South Africans fleeing "persecution." But the South African government has repeatedly rejected allegations that it is persecuting white people or confiscating their land. It said claims of a white genocide had been widely discredited and lacked reliable evidence. South Africa's latest crime statistics do not indicate that more white people have fallen victim to violent crime than other racial groups.
Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners last year after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law allowing the government to seize land without compensation in rare instances. The legislation allows the state to expropriate property in the public interest and provides for circumstances in which compensation may be set at zero. But it also requires authorities, in most cases, to first try to reach an agreement with property owners, and disputes can be taken to court.
Land ownership remains a highly sensitive issue in South Africa more than three decades after the end of apartheid, under which the black majority was dispossessed of land and denied many basic rights. The government says land reform is necessary to address those historic inequalities and insists the new law does not permit arbitrary seizures. Most private farmland is owned by white South Africans, who make up just over 7% of the population.
In a separate social media post on Tuesday, Rubio accused South Africa's government of pursuing "racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority" and said those responsible for what he described as injustices "have no place in the United States". He said the South African government had failed to adequately address US concerns about what Washington describes as "government-sponsored discrimination" against Afrikaners and other minorities. "The United States will not allow such behaviour to go unchecked," he added.
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