Many Afrikaners are unimpressed with US President Donald Trump’s surprise offer to grant them refugee status.
Theo de Jager, the president of the Southern African Agricultural Initiative (Saai), is among those who won’t be standing in line.
“I have been farming near Tzaneen since 1997. Even if the Americans offered me free transport and a hectare-for-hectare swap with land in Texas, I will not go. This is my land and the land of my fathers and I will stay here,” said De Jager, who farms blue gums, avocados and macadamia nuts.
“No generation gets to pick their battles. They get given to you. This generation’s battle is poverty. This is Africa’s war. If we do not fight and win this battle, we have no future.”
But De Jager does not like the idea of land expropriation.
“You cannot expropriate your nation to wealth. Wealth must be created and to do that you need a policy environment that encourages entrepreneurship and investment,” he said.
“Capital is as shy as a kudu. If you give it a fright it starts running and it will never come back. How can you go to Davos and implore people to come and invest and then in the same breath say, ‘But we may take your investment later for no compensation’?”
Trump fired the opening salvo last Sunday, saying in a social media post that “certain classes of people” in South Africa were being treated “VERY BADLY” and threatening to freeze aid.
Then Pretoria-born billionaire Elon Musk entered the fray, demanding to know on X why South Africa has “openly racist ownership laws”. On Friday, Trump issued an executive order halting all aid to South Africa and offering refugee status to Afrikaners.
The order said the action was also motivated by South Africa’s genocide case against Israel and its close relationship with Iran.
After Trump’s first post, the ANC and others blamed AfriForum, which has lobbied in the US against expropriation without compensation.
Yesterday, after Trump’s executive order ending all aid, the Solidarity Movement called a media conference at AfriForum’s head office in Centurion to try to deflect the condemnation aimed at it and announce it was sending a delegation to Washington.
We believe the solution must be found in South Africa. We reaffirm today our firm commitment to the country and all its people.
— Flip Buys, Solidarity chair
Solidarity chair Flip Buys said he welcomed “the concern of important Americans about our situation”, but added: “We believe the solution must be found in South Africa. We reaffirm today our firm commitment to the country and all its people.”
Buys acknowledged that Solidarity differed with the ANC “about the direction of the country, the many race laws that make us second-class citizens”. He cited the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act and the “blatant threats made by certain politicians towards Afrikaners”.
“However, we would like to put on record the following: first, we did not accuse the government of large-scale, race-based land grabs, or distribute false information in this regard,” Buys said.
“Second, we did not and will not ask for sanctions against South Africa or for funds for vulnerable people to be cut off by the US government.
“Third, over the past three or four years we explicitly asked senior US officials to not kick South Africa out of Agoa [the Africa Growth & Opportunity Act] because of the suffering it will cause to farmers and their workers, and the livelihoods of workers in the auto, chemical and other industries.”
Buys said the ANC only had itself to blame for sparking Trump’s ire with its “reckless policies”. A contributing factor was “years of neglect by South African diplomats”.
Buys said the Solidarity Movement — of which AfriForum is part — had been taken by surprise when Trump issued his order.
“It would not be in the interest of South Africa if there was a deterioration in the relationship with the world’s largest economy.
“We will urgently request a meeting with President [Cyril] Ramaphosa to address the possible differences between us and to find solutions for them. We believe that in South Africa we can solve these kinds of differences,” Buys said.
He would be going to the US, but not as an “Afrikaner refugee”.
“I will lead a delegation later this month for discussions with White House representatives ... to put the situation in South Africa in context. We are willing to have honest discussions about the state of the country and our community and we commit to convey facts as accurately and responsibly as we have always done.”
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said Ramaphosa and the ANC were to blame for the Trump order.
“This is indeed a crisis, and we tried to avert this crisis. In April last year we wrote a letter to President Ramaphosa urging him not to sign the Expropriation Act, saying what we believe the problems in the act are,” Kriel said.
“If you believe these problems to be fabricated, go and look at section 12(3) of the act, which allows expropriation with no compensation. We also stated in the letter that this will harm our international relations and investments in the country.”
AfriForum hoped the president would refer the act back to parliament.
“Our proposal was treated with disdain, because to this day we have not received a response.”
Dirk Hermann, the CEO of Solidarity, said South Africa could be kicked out of Agoa because of ANC policies that alienated the Trump administration
Dirk Hermann, the CEO of Solidarity, said South Africa could be kicked out of Agoa because of ANC policies that alienated the Trump administration.
However, the Free State farmers’ association Free State Agriculture welcomed Trump’s intervention. Spokesperson Francois Wilken said farmers were “defenceless” as criminals stole their crops and livestock.
“Farmers have been targeted by radical left-wing politicians who have incited their supporters against [us] and the agricultural sector through hate speech,” Wilken said.
“For three decades, these problems have been denied, dismissed, and ignored by a political elite that has stripped our country bare and forsaken the rural economy. Now, not only our possessions but also our economic survival are at risk due to the new Expropriation Act.
“Although land has not yet been confiscated by the state, the act enables the government to seize any property — land, money, houses, vehicles and more. Therefore, the government’s assurances that assets will not be confiscated are simply not credible.”
The Afrikaner Bond also welcomed the Trump order.
“Many Afrikaners and other South Africans have already left and settled in the US, where they make valuable economic contributions,” said the group’s chief secretary, Jan Bosman.
“Thus, we must assume that there are more Afrikaners who will consider the offer of resettlement. America and other countries’ gain is, therefore, South Africa's loss.”
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