President Trump has ordered a freeze on all foreign aid to South Africa in an executive order he signed Friday, claiming that a new land reform law amounts to “government-sponsored race-based discrimination.” The country’s white minority still owns the vast majority of farmland decades after the end of apartheid rule. Trump also criticized South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ and said the United States would accept white South Africans as refugees facing what he characterized as persecution. The cuts to aid are already causing widespread suffering in South Africa, where “after 30 years of democracy, not much has changed in terms of wealth ownership” and a white population with colonial roots is “using politics, ideology, misinformation and propaganda … to maintain the status quo,” says South African activist Trevor Ngwane.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
President Trump ordered a freeze on all foreign aid to South Africa in an executive order Friday, claiming South Africa’s white population is facing, quote, “government-sponsored race-based discrimination.” Trump has repeatedly criticized the new land reform law in South Africa, where the country’s white minority still owns the vast majority of farmland 30 years after the end of apartheid rule. Trump wrote on his Truth Social account Sunday, “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” unquote. Trump has made the claim before. The South African government says it’s part of a, quote, “campaign of misinformation and propaganda,” unquote. His order also claims South African leaders have, quote, “taken aggressive positions” toward the U.S. and its allies, citing its pursuit of genocide claims against Israel before the International Court of Justice.
South Africans responded to the freeze of an estimated $440 million in U.S. aid. This is a woman seeking her regular treatment for HIV/AIDS when she realized the clinic was closed. She spoke with Sky News Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir.
YOUSRA ELBAGIR: Are you trying to go to the clinic?
PATIENT: Yeah.
YOUSRA ELBAGIR: It’s closed.
PATIENT: What happened?
YOUSRA ELBAGIR: I mean, the USAID funding has been frozen, so they’re closing down clinics. Do you have alternatives?
PATIENT: I don’t know. I’m going to ask next door. Hopefully they’ll be able to assist me. If they can’t, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. Serious. What will I do? There’s nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s order also offered refugee status in the United States to white South Africans, Afrikaners, who are, quote, “victims of unjust racial discrimination.” But many in the right-wing white lobby groups say they want to stay and focus on ending Black majority rule.
All of this comes as the South African-born billionaire, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, now a leader in Trump’s administration, has said white South Africans have been the victims of, quote, “racist ownership laws,” and accused the post-apartheid government of anti-white racism. Last week, Musk’s 78-year-old father Errol Musk said an adviser to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa asked him to help.
ERROL MUSK: I was asked if I can arrange a quick talk between Ramaphosa and Elon, last night. So, I said, “All right.” So I did. And then they spoke a few minutes later. And it’s on my phone. … I can only imagine that Elon would have said, “Look, we want to help you, but you have to quit this — this war on white people in South Africa.”
AMY GOODMAN: Errol Musk is Elon Musk’s father. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has increasingly embraced far-right leaders and conspiracy theories that some have linked to his roots in apartheid-era South Africa.
In a minute, we’ll also look at how Musk is part of the “PayPal mafia” of libertarian billionaires with roots in South Africa under white rule, who now hold powerful positions in the tech industry and politics and surround the White House. But we begin in Johannesburg with Trevor Ngwane, Soweto-based activist and chair of the United Front, umbrella body of community and labor organizations.
Welcome back, Trevor, to Democracy Now! Talk about the effects of this immediate cutting off of all U.S. aid to South Africa, your country.
TREVOR NGWANE: Thank you, Amy.
Yeah, it’s terrible, because remember that there’s a lot of programs here which rely on American funding, primarily the HIV program, PEPFAR. Seventeen percent of the programs are funded by money from America. And with one stroke, all those services were stopped, because no money came through. And millions of people are suffering, including other community, social and health programs. So this is very bad for the people here in South Africa.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s very interesting you mentioned PEPFAR. Let’s remember that it was established by the former Republican President of the United States George W. Bush, what many call perhaps the most important achievement of his presidency. The significance, when you talk, Trevor, looking back at the end of apartheid in ’94, white South Africans, who make up, what, 7% of the population, owning farms that make up about half of South Africa? What are your thoughts on the information or misinformation we’re getting in the United States about land seizures from Donald Trump and from the South African-born Elon Musk?
TREVOR NGWANE: Well, white people, you know, are sitting pretty. They manage to hang onto most of their wealth. Due to global and local economic processes, the rich continue to get richer, and the poor get poorer. Most of the white — of the farmland, more than 70% of it is owned by white farmers. So, basically, they are sitting pretty. You know, they’ve got nothing to complain about. Perhaps, Amy — you know, there’s a saying, “The guilty are afraid.” Perhaps they know that this unjust situation, where a tiny minority enjoys most of the country’s wealth and resources, is not tenable, and sooner or later, it will have to end.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Trevor, President Trump welcoming Afrikaner refugees into the United States as flight after flight takes immigrants from the United States, for example, to Guantánamo?
TREVOR NGWANE: Yeah, well, the white people here are not interested in going to the U.S.A. because they’re having a good life here. The only thing that is bothering them is what I can call white fears in the face of Black aspirations, indeed Black frustrations, because after 30 years of democracy, not much has changed in terms of, you know, where’s ownership, in terms of basic improvement in the everyday lives of the people. White people, they are human beings. They can see that the suffering continues. They’re just guilty. And they know that they should part give away some of their wealth, but they are not prepared, so they are using politics, ideology, misinformation and propaganda, some of them, you know, to maintain the status quo.
AMY GOODMAN: Trevor Ngwane is joining us from Johannesburg, South Africa.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.