In an audacious and deeply misleading move, former U.S. President Donald Trump has accused South Africa of committing genocide against its White minority, specifically Afrikaners. This baseless accusation formed the foundation of Executive Order 14202, which he signed on February 7, 2025, and used to justify flying 59 White South Africans to the United States on a private jet for resettlement. Trump has claimed this action is meant to correct what he calls the “egregious” policies of the South African government. However, this is nothing short of a blatant attempt to whitewash the dark legacy of apartheid and twist historical truth for political gain.
Executive Order 14202 paints a dangerously false narrative. In Section One, Trump asserts that the South African government, under President Cyril Ramaphosa, violates the rights of its citizens through its recently passed Expropriation Act 13. He claims this law allows for the uncompensated seizure of agricultural land from ethnic minority Afrikaners. This interpretation is factually incorrect and intentionally misleading.
The truth is, the Expropriation Act 13, signed into law in January 2025 after extensive parliamentary debate, is designed to enable the South African government to acquire land for public use — a principle common in legal frameworks across the globe, including the United States. While the Act does allow for land expropriation without compensation in certain cases, it is not racially targeted. The African National Congress (ANC), which championed the law, argues that it is a necessary step to address the deep economic imbalances left by apartheid. During apartheid, White South Africans, who today make up just 7.3% of the population, owned 85% of arable land. Despite the end of apartheid in 1994, they still control around 72% of agricultural land.
Thus, when Trump claims that White South Africans are being unfairly dispossessed, he is grossly distorting the facts. His rhetoric ignores the painful history of land dispossession suffered by Black South Africans and undermines legitimate efforts to achieve land justice and economic equity.
Trump’s executive order further escalates the situation by accusing South Africa of aligning itself against the United States and its allies, specifically in relation to the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. He criticizes South Africa for filing a genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) following the devastating war in Gaza that began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants launched a deadly attack on Israel.
While Trump frames South Africa’s action as hostile, the reality is that the lawsuit was consistent with South Africa’s obligations as a signatory to the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. President Ramaphosa has made it clear that the suit is not about taking sides but standing up for universal human rights and justice — values rooted in South Africa’s own painful experience with apartheid. “As a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism, and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will stand on the right side of history,” Ramaphosa declared.
Trump’s reaction to South Africa’s legal move reveals a dangerous conflation of diplomacy with ideological loyalty. He has doubled down on his genocide accusations, even presenting supposed evidence in the form of videos and news reports. However, many of the materials he cited were in fact related to atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where actual genocide has killed over six million people since 1996 — a crisis Trump has consistently ignored.
Why, then, is Trump so invested in the resettlement of White South Africans? The answer lies in his long-standing racial and political motivations. During his initial campaign and presidency, Trump made clear his disdain for immigrants from Africa and Latin America, labeling their countries as “shitholes” and accusing them of sending criminals to the U.S. Since beginning his second term, he has overseen mass deportations of African and Latin American immigrants, including legally residing students. Yet he makes an exception for White South Africans — a privileged group by African standards — whom he welcomes into the country.
This selective immigration policy is part of a broader strategy. Trump has accused Democrats of using immigrants to boost their voter base. By deporting non-White immigrants and replacing them with White ones, Trump is clearly trying to reshape the demographics in favor of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda. In private conversations, he has even expressed a desire for more immigrants from predominantly White countries like Denmark and Switzerland, lamenting that such nations are too prosperous for their citizens to consider moving to the U.S.
Ultimately, Trump’s immigration strategy is not rooted in humanitarian concern or ideological consistency. It is about race, politics, and power. His misuse of history, especially with regard to South Africa’s apartheid legacy, is not just misleading but deeply insulting to those who fought for justice, including the late Nelson Mandela. We cannot allow these revisionist narratives to go unchallenged.
Trump’s Executive Order 14202 is a calculated distortion of truth, designed to fuel racial division and serve political interests. As citizens of a global community committed to justice, we must call it what it is — a racially charged attempt to rewrite history and manipulate immigration for partisan gain.
