Trump cuts South Africa funding over land policy, ICJ case

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to cut US financial help to South Africa, the White House said on Friday, citing disapproval of its land policy and of its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington’s ally Israel.

The United States allocated nearly US$440 million in help to South Africa in 2023, the most recent US government data shows.

South Africa’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the executive order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.”

The White House said Washington will also formulate a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees.

It said US officials will take steps to prioritise humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program for Afrikaners in South Africa, who are mostly white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers.

South Africa’s foreign ministry said, “It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains among the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship.”