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00:00In South Africa, stocks and currency down in the wake of Donald Trump's threat to suspend
00:05aid over land reform policy.
00:08President Cyril Ramaphosa rejecting his U.S. counterpart's assertion that South Africa's
00:13government was, quote, confiscating land.
00:17Many there wonder if South African-born billionaire Elon Musk may be whispering in Trump's ear.
00:24Musk, who in the past has expressed nostalgia for the apartheid era.
00:30Charlie James has more.
00:34It all started on Sunday with this statement from Donald Trump.
00:38Terrible things are happening in South Africa.
00:41They're taking away land, they're confiscating land, and actually they're doing things that
00:46are perhaps far worse than that.
00:49The U.S. president offered no proof of his claim, but threatened to cut off all funding
00:54to South Africa.
00:56Trump appeared to be reacting to a land expropriation law enacted last month by South African President
01:02Cyril Ramaphosa, one that makes it easier for the state to seize land in the public
01:07interest.
01:09The new law aims to address the gaping land ownership disparity in South Africa, a result
01:14of decades of white minority rule under apartheid.
01:18White people make up around 8 percent of South Africa's population, but own three-quarters
01:23of the nation's freehold farmland.
01:26In response to Trump, Ramaphosa said the South African government has not confiscated any
01:32land, and that he looks forward to clarifying the land reform policy with Washington.
01:38South Africa's mineral resources minister had a tougher reaction.
01:42And I said, let's multi-mobilize Africa, let's withhold minerals to U.S.
01:48That is it.
01:49If they don't give us money, let's not give them minerals.
01:52Trump's interest in this issue may be coming from one of his closest allies, Elon Musk,
01:58who was born in South Africa.
02:00The world's richest man has also attacked Pretoria, accusing his homeland of allowing
02:05a genocide against white farmers.
02:09Trump's threat is already impacting South Africa's economy.
02:12The nation's currency, stocks and government bonds all weakened on Monday.
02:19Well for more, let's turn to Philipp van Niekerk.
02:21He's a former editor of South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, editorial director
02:26of Scrolla Africa.
02:28Thank you for joining us from Washington.
02:30Hi there.
02:31Are you, are you surprised by this announcement by Donald Trump that we heard in that report?
02:36Well, I'm not surprised by it, but it is a sort of a very bad example of how to make
02:44friends and alienate, how to alienate your friends and please your enemies, because the
02:52substance of what Trump seemed to be saying was absolute nonsense, frankly.
02:57There is, there has been no confiscation.
03:00I have no idea what the far worse is that he's referring to.
03:07This sort of attack came out of the blue.
03:10South Africa has been trying very hard to mend its fences with the United States.
03:15Nothing has really happened to, you know, to, to change anything in the, in the past
03:21little while.
03:22I mean, you know, South Africa has a constitution under section 25, property rights are protected.
03:29And yes, so legislation was passed, which is not, does not mean there's going to be
03:36wholesale expropriation.
03:38But I mean, you've got to remember some context here that South Africa had centuries of dispossession
03:46of black people's land and very little has been done since 1994.
03:54There's been some land reform, but actually to rectify that situation and you know, there's
03:59nothing illegal or invalid or unconstitutional about, you know, what South Africa is trying
04:06to do.
04:07And certainly nothing imminent that might have sparked this crazy attack from Trump.
04:15And I think that, by the way, that the South African president handled it in a very calm
04:19and a very measured way.
04:21He was, you know, very, you know, much more diplomatic than the, than the initial attack
04:28that-
04:29Yeah, because Sierra Leone opposes ANC and some of its coalition partners don't always
04:34see eye to eye on this issue.
04:36But here there seems to be a moment of national unity.
04:39Well, yeah, because it seems like, well, actually there are, I would say, a group of white people
04:47on the right who do, would sympathize with Trump, but they're a tiny, tiny minority.
04:54I think the vast majority of South Africans across the board, including the opposition
04:59with the Democratic Alliance, which is now in the government of national unity with the
05:04ANC, who, who feel, you know, that this is, this is a mistaken, it's a wrong attack because,
05:11you know, it's not based on fact and it's, it's a completely unnecessary, you know, attack
05:19from a, from, from a country that is supposed to be an ally or a friend of South Africa.
05:24Yes.
05:25And everybody, of course, wondering, is this Elon Musk, South African born, whispering
05:31into Donald Trump's ear?
05:34You know, that's, it's probably right.
05:38Musk has also had issues with the South African government because, you know, he's, there
05:43have been problems with his attempts to, to bring Starlink to South Africa.
05:47And there are issues there because, you know, South Africa does mandate a certain percentage
05:53of black ownership in, in local companies.
05:57But Musk has also kind of been posting wild stuff about white genocide and he was very
06:04quick on, on his ex today to be, to be out there, you know, bashing Ramaphosa for racism
06:13in response to his very calm and collected statement.
06:17And so, you know, Musk obviously has a lot of, has a lot of influence.
06:21And I ask myself, you know, apart from anything else, there's not a lot of aid that the United
06:28States gives South Africa.
06:29There is a lot of, you know, investment from the United States, from American companies.
06:34But the one thing that has already been paused and already caused a lot of havoc is PEPFAR,
06:39which is the, you know, the, the initiative against HIV.
06:45And what was interesting is that Bill Gates, you know, who's been a big advocate of, of
06:52the treatment action of, of, of treatment of HIV victims, went to see Trump on the 27th
06:59at Mar-a-Lago and said to him, look, this is not going to go on forever.
07:03What we need, we are working towards a vaccine for HIV aid, but we need still to bridge,
07:08we need a little bit of time.
07:10There are millions and millions of Africans, you know, who are dependent upon this medication
07:14for treatment of HIV.
07:16And Trump seemed, according to Gates, seemed enthused and also seemed to agree.
07:20Now, between then and about three weeks later, when suddenly PEPFAR was put on pause, was
07:27one of the first programs, first U.S. programs to actually be, be stopped, somebody had got
07:35to Trump.
07:36And I suspect that that somebody was Musk.
07:39Somebody who was telling Trump, well, you know, these, the lives of these black Africans
07:42are worth nothing.
07:43Philip, one final question for you, because we've spent the last four years watching the
07:47way, when it comes to bilateral relations, the U.S. trying to drive a wedge between South
07:52Africa and members of the BRICS, who are on the other side of the fence when it comes
08:01to the war in Ukraine, talking about China and Russia.
08:05What happens now when it comes to South Africa's foreign policy, if the Trump administration
08:10continues down this path?
08:12Well, I think the problem for the United States is that you're driving South Africa, you're
08:19driving other countries in the global south into the arms of China.
08:24South Africa's kind of made it very clear that they're a non-aligned country.
08:29India is non-aligned.
08:30India has relations with China.
08:32India has relations with the United States.
08:35Brazil has relations with China.
08:37Brazil has relations with the United States.
08:39South Africa sees itself in that bracket.
08:41South Africa is part of BRICS, but it's inherently part of the global Western economy and has
08:47an enormous number of American companies that are invested in South Africa.
08:53This kind of unnecessary picking apart of a relationship, which serves both, I mean,
09:01South Africa provides a lot of goods to the United States, as well as critical minerals.
09:11It's just kind of unnecessary.
09:13It sort of boggles the mind why Trump or the United States would want to do this right
09:20now because it doesn't make any sense geopolitically anyway.
09:24Philip van Niekerk, many thanks for speaking with us from Washington.