United States v. South Africa: US Executive Order 14204
Brief # 198 Foreign Policy | Damian DeSola | April 21, 2025
The current US administration has altered South Africa’s trajectory as a nation. On 7 February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14204 titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”. It outlines two reasons for its existence, first that South Africa’s Expropriation Act (2024) dismantles “equal opportunity” and fuels “disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners”. Secondly, the Order states that South Africa’s condemnation of Israel to the International Court of Justice, “poses national security threats to the US.” The provisions of the order also set two major policies that will reverberate across the international community. One is an immediate cut to United States aid to South Africa, second is the promotion of resettling Afrikaners, Dutch-descended South Africans, in the United States as refugees from racial discrimination.
Following this order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expelled South African Ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool over his comments: “the Maga movement as a response not simply to a supremacist instinct, but to very clear data that shows great demographic shifts in the USA in which the voting electorate in the USA is projected to become 48% white.” Rubio said that Ambassador Rasool is “no longer welcome”. Furthermore, Donald Trump has posted on Truth Social that the United States will not be attending the G20 Summit in South Africa this year under the false claim that, “They are taking the land of white Farmers and then killing them and their families. The Media refuses to report on this.”
Before examining the consequences of these actions, it is necessary to outline basic context of South Africa as it exists in international relations.
With the arrival of Dutch colonizers, the land now known as South Africa has been in a perpetual state of societal complication. The construction of a repressive race-based social hierarchy that legally lasted to the end of the apartheid state in the 1990s, still stains its history. Even now, many public institutions like schools and hospitals remain segregated while most commercial farmland is still owned by white farmers.
No longer a colony nor run by a white supremacist government, South Africa has sought its place in the world. It is the ‘S’ at the end of the acronym for the international economic coalition BRICS; it has strong relationships with European nations, and formerly with the United States.
Whether or not one agrees with the political choices made by the post-apartheid South African governments, the nation seeks to develop its economy and society in a direction that is built on foreign direct investment and anti-apartheid sentiment.
Trump’s rhetoric would make one think that the South African government’s ne3 law orders all land owned by the minority white farmers be immediately nationalized and redistributed to the black majority. The South African government says this law will not be used arbitrarily and only for the purpose of public interest. There is no language in the law that specifically mentions the race of landowners. As of this writing, there has been no confiscation of land reported.
The resettlement of Afrikaners is a policy focus that is closely tied with Trump, Musk, and the administration’s rhetoric condemning the Expropriation Act and of general criticism of South Africa’s government. The false rhetoric that white South Africans are having their land stolen and being murdered by the government and by black South Africans, has become an excuse to accept Afrikaners as refugees in a show of race solidarity. Tens of thousands of Afrikaners have shown interest in the program.
In terms of South Africa’s relationship with Iran, the evidence for anti-American activity that would undermine US national security is sparse at best. The claim that South Africa has taken the side of Hamas, which is supported by Iran, is entirely based on the assumption that accusing Israel of genocide in Palestine is inherently pro-Hamas. However, South Africa’s support for Palestine has existed since the days of Nelson Mandela’s fight against apartheid, where he believed that both South Africa’s and Palestine’s causes for liberty were synonymous.
Trump’s Executive Order, to halt aid and to resettle Afrikaners as refugees in the United States, has considerable implications. The halting of aid to South Africa will be majorly detrimental to U.S. soft power, and to the livelihood of the South African people. Questions also remain over the continuation of HIV aid to South Africa as it flows through USAID, which is being dismantled. If aid is discontinued, the waning HIV epidemic in South Africa, and across Southern Africa will reaccelerate. In terms of soft power, US rivals will be emboldened to step into its place as reliable investors in South Africa’s future.
The Trump administration’s policy decisions and diplomatic actions will have major implications for future US foreign policy in Africa and the ongoing power struggle between the United States and China over international influence. South Africa will continue to act in its interests as its unique post-apartheid system evolves and adapts to these developments.