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The Trump administration has announced that it will impose travel bans on officials it claims are responsible for discrimination against White people and other minority groups in South Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he would revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications from foreign nationals found to be responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or enforcing laws and policies that allow uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority ethnic and racial groups in South Africa.
“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked,” Rubio said in a statement. “These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”
The South African government has strongly rejected U.S. allegations of discrimination against whites, calling the claims made by the administration since President Trump returned to office last year baseless and a result of misinformation.
South Africa’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that it had “noted with concern” the new U.S. visa restrictions, adding that the U.S. announcement aligned with “the mischaracterization of South Africa’s domestic policies by fringe groups,” according to the Reuters news agency.
Rubio didn’t identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority White people in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa’s Parliament.
It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that white people, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa’s previous apartheid system of racial segregation.
There are approximately 4.5 million White people in South Africa’s population of 62 million, which also includes White people with British or other heritage.
The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Black people and others, and a small number of violent crimes against White farmers as evidence of a larger anti-White stance in South Africa.
The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa’s move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a highly emotive case in the United Nations’ top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.
The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Mr. Trump’s second term for purported anti-White and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa’s HIV treatment program.
The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other White people, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.
The State Department argued that Afrikaners faced “escalating hostility,” including critical statements by politicians and a December raid by South African authorities on a U.S. refugee processing center. At the time, South African officials said they had arrested Kenyans who were working at the center illegally, but the U.S. condemned the raid.
The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa hasn’t changed its policies.
“This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter,” the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X on Wednesday, referring to Rubio’s visa announcement.
Rubio said on social media that “As [Mr. Trump] has made clear, the South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority.”
