Musk-y odour of Trump’s actions over South Africa
Buried deep within a bizarre series of weekend events asDonald Trump and Elon Musk eviscerated the 63-year-old US Agency for International Development: the US president’s attack on South Africa.
Mr Trump singled out American support for South Africa, which was roughly $440m in 2023, according to US government data.
Promising to cut off “all future funding”, he said his actions were in response to recent South African land confiscations. These, he declared, were poor treatment of “certain classes of people”.
What’s he talking about, one might well wonder and why?
Well, on January 24, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a controversial bill that allows the state to confiscate land, without compensation if it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so. Circumstances where compensation would not be paid include if the property is not being used, if there’s no intention to either develop or make money from it, or when it poses a risk to people.
Mr Ramaphosa’s spokesperson has said that, under the new law, the state “may not expropriate property arbitrarily or for a purpose other than…in the public interest”.
However, some oppose the new law because it is likely to disproportionately affect white farmers because they disproportionately own South African land. Black people still own only a fraction of farmland in South Africa more than 30 years after the end of apartheid.
Mr Trump’s actions on USAID — whimsical, petulant, cruel — were unsurprising. What was a surprise is his sudden interest in racial justice, or at least his attempt to champion the cause of anyone other than himself. That said, he spoke for the white man in South Africa and that is just an interesting reflection of the company he keeps these days. First buddy Elon Musk is originally from South Africa and as some may remember from back in 2023, the tech billionaire accuses that country’s left-wing parties of supporting the extermination of white people.
Go figure.
Originally published at https://www.rashmee.com
