Bruising battle in South Africa over white farmers and Trump order

US President Donald Trump’s pronouncements on South Africa are fueling hatred and jeopardizing an economic success story, South Africa’s biggest farm group said.

Trump, who cut off aid to South Africa after making false claims about a land-expropriation law and persecution of Afrikaners, an ethnic group descended mainly from Dutch and French settlers, has divided the farm community, Johann Kotze, chief executive officer of AgriSA and an Afrikaner himself, said.

Afriforum, a conservative White Afrikaans rights group, has been accused of misinforming Trump with years of campaigning over land grabs that never took place and alleged persecution of White people. Right wing farmer groups and separatist organizations have praised Trump’s comments.

“I disagree with what they stated out here. I didn’t experience that as organized agriculture in South Africa,” Kotze said in an interview on Tuesday. “The radicalism that took place after Donald Trump’s statement that fuels hatred.”

Trump, in a Feb. 7 order and other statements, accused the South African government of treating “certain classes of people VERY BADLY” and said he planned to offer Afrikaners refugee status.

His claims have been amplified by South African-born Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and one of his top allies.

“It’s quite bizarre,” Kotze said of the refugee offer. “In agriculture and the way we farm and the success we have with exports and the life we have. Why would you leave that to be in a country where you don’t have any citizenship?”

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, when a Whites-only government dominated by Afrikaners ceded power to the Black majority, agricultural output has doubled in South Africa, and farm exports have risen more than sixfold. The sector provides 935,000 jobs.

“We are at the brink of starting something new and creating something new,” Kotze said. “We don’t need some negativity now.”

He expressed concern that Trump might cut off South Africa’s duty-free access to the US market for some goods, including farm products such as wine and citrus fruit.

AgriSA, many of whose members are Afrikaners, represents 1,000 farmer associations across South Africa’s nine provinces and also has consumers of farm products as members.

Following Trump’s actions, Orania, a small Afrikaner-only settlement, demanded greater self-determination.

Afriforum, while saying Trump’s actions aren’t in the interests of the country, said the South African government is to blame for aid being cut off by the US.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union, which advocates Christian values and private property rights, thanked Trump for his intervention.

Kotze also dismissed claims that have been fueled in the past by Musk in posts on X that Afrikaans farmers are being murdered for political reasons.

“Crime in South Africa is too high,” he said. “If a murder is on a farm, we call it a farm murder. But remember that same night somebody was also murdered in the little township where the farm workers came from.” Most farmworkers in South Africa are Black.

Still, Kotze said, AgriSA does have concerns about the expropriation act signed into law by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about two weeks ago, such as when land can be taken without compensation and may take legal action to have it clarified.

But, he added, disputing Trump’s statement, “no farms were taken without compensation, None, Land grabs did not take place.”