Trump Shows Ramaphosa the Bird

South Africa faces US backlash after Trump’s remarks on land reform and Elon Musk joins the debate. Can Ramaphosa turn global scrutiny into an opportunity for South Africa? More from Vernon Wessels and Giulietta Talevi of Currency.

• After SA signed the Expropriation Act, Trump threatened to cut US funding, claiming land seizures target specific groups.
• Elon Musk called SA’s laws “racist”, adding fuel to the fire, while SA’s government insists on open dialogue to clear misconceptions.
• SA risks damaging US trade ties (like AGOA), but experts say Ramaphosa could flip this crisis into a chance to reset foreign relations. 

No-one wants Trump’s attention. Now South Africa’s land reform is under scrutiny. Can Ramaphosa use the row to improve the country’s footing with the US and turn relations around?



Donald Trump is like the teacher scanning the classroom for someone to give their speech first – and you’re not ready. You hope to go unnoticed; shift in your seat, avoid eye contact.

Unfortunately, South Africa has now been called to the front by the US president, and Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is under icy scrutiny following last month’s signing of the Expropriation Act. Trump has threatened to cut all US funding after a “full investigation”, claiming on Truth Social that South Africa is “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.

While the act does allow the government to seize land without compensation under specific circumstances, no land has been confiscated, Ramaphosa’s office clarified; South Africa remains a constitutional democracy, and the act provides a legal framework for equitable land access, he said. The president invited discussions to “share a better understanding” of land reform and bilateral issues.

But it didn’t take long for billionaire Elon Musk, the Pretoria-born founder of Tesla and SpaceX, to weigh in. Using his platform, X (formerly Twitter), he replied to Ramaphosa: “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”

In response, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, urged Musk to call the president directly, and to “constructively” discuss the matter to better understand the lasting impact of apartheid. “You have his number,” Magwenya said.

This isn’t Musk’s first challenge to his former homeland: in July 2023, in reaction to EFF leader Julius Malema chanting “Kill the boer, kill the farmer”, he asked Ramaphosa why he’d remained silent when people were “openly pushing for [the] genocide of white people in South Africa”.

“It’s all very well to dismiss such comments as misinformed or misguided, but they are out there,” says George Glynos, a co-founder and the head of research of ETM Analytics. While diplomatic engagement will likely defuse tensions, South Africa’s geopolitical choices will remain under scrutiny and “South Africa will be held accountable, if not internally, then externally”, he tells Currency.

The problem is that Ramaphosa and the ANC’s policies have done nothing to endear the country to the US, particularly US Republicans, due to the party’s deepening ties with China, its relationship with Russia, its non-aligned stance on Ukraine, and its hardline position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

And whatever moral high ground South Africa has had is undermined by its many domestic crises, says Glynos, “from gender-based violence to mass unemployment, racially based politics, rampant corruption that goes unchecked and the inability to deliver basic services to our people”.

The silver lining, reckons Glynos, is that Trump’s remarks may have a positive effect if they force greater government accountability. 

Hendrik du Toit, the CEO of South Africa’s largest publicly traded money manager, Ninety One, also believes good can come of the situation – if it’s handled correctly by the politicians.

“Where do we start where foreign policy has been an abject failure for such a long time?” he says. “We finally have a foreign minister who has a good grasp of the issues, and I think South Africa needs to start understanding that foreign policy is about the interest of the nation – it’s not an ideological exercise.”

Unfortunately, ideology is the hallmark of ANC rule: it has stubbornly stuck with Russia due to its support during apartheid, and its views align closely with those of China’s ruling Communist Party.

It’s criticism of Israel will have done it no favours with Washington.

‘Turn this into a positive’
Yet the attention on South Africa now could give the country a platform to launch discussions, Du Toit says.

“We actually have a good position if we make clear we are willing to negotiate,” he tells Currency. “[This is] a great topic for a bilateral meeting and we can turn this into a positive.”

However, South Africa needs to be “very deliberate about how we engage this rather irate superpower”, and it should then similarly engage with the EU, the UK and the rising giants of Asia.

And we need to do this sooner, rather than later. Iraj Abedian, the founder and CEO of Pan-African Investment and Research Services, says Ramaphosa – known more for his commissions of inquiry than anything else – has to act, for a change.

“There is a basket of interventions that we have to do to protect the national interests,” he says. And the deadlines, “need to go from months and years to hours and minutes”.

Doing nothing isn’t an option, either.

“There’s no question – the tsunami has hit us, and if we don’t do anything, we are going to suffer badly … It’s not a wind that will blow over. If we don’t do anything, we will be thrown into the depths, and we cannot blame anyone else.”

Right the wrongs
South Africa must correct the narrative, says Theo Boshoff, the CEO of the Agricultural Business Chamber, which represents agribusinesses supporting farmers.

Expropriation is “just one way the state acquires land” and often for various purposes, such as infrastructure or nature conservation, as it is in many countries, including the US, he explains.

What makes South Africa different is its land reform mandate to redress apartheid injustices. The act is there to lead the due legal process, and landowners still retain their constitutional property rights. While there are still issues with the legislation in terms of zero compensation, this needs to be tested in court, even though that may tie farmers up in expensive litigation, he says.

As for whether South Africa could lose access to the crucial African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which gives the country preferential access for some of its exports to the US, Boshoff isn’t so sure. The country meets all trade-related criteria for Agoa, and the programme doesn’t amount to aid, so it shouldn’t really be affected.

However, the US does have a provision that it will only support countries that match their foreign relations and diplomatic interests, which poses a challenge for South Africa.

“You can’t have countries benefiting from American investments then attacking them,” says Abedian. “The unconditional humanitarian approach which was embedded in globalisation has pretty much ended now.”

Ultimately, no-one knows how this will pan out. “It’s really only politics that can mess it up,” says Boshoff. “I hope that doesn’t happen.”

Top image: collage by Currency; picture sources: Getty and Gallo

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