US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order freezing financial aid to South Africa, after threatening to do so earlier this week.
Trump said he was bringing in the order because of South Africa’s new land law, which he says is violating people’s rights, and also because of its international court case accusing Israel of genocide.
Meanwhile, the South African government condemned it as a campaign of misinformation and propaganda aimed at misrepresenting the country.
A statement from the country’s Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation said that the move fails to recognize South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.
Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, also joined in the criticism asking on X why President Cyril Ramaphosa had openly racist ownership laws.
Ramaphosa has not responded, but previously defended South Africa’s land policy after Trump’s threat on Sunday.
He said the government had not confiscated any land and the policy was aimed at ensuring equitable public access to land.
The new law was signed last month, and allows land seizures without compensation in certain circumstances.
Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa with most private farmland owned by white people, 30 years after the end of the racist system of apartheid.
There have been continuous calls for the government to address land reform and deal with the past injustices of racial segregation.
South Africa’s new law allows for expropriation without compensation only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
