Donald Trump & Conservative America’s Love Story with South African Land

In the past few weeks, the South African government has signed into law the Land Expropriation Act; intending to govern the process of land expropriation. However, unlike the fears driven by the past narratives of land expropriation without compensation by radical parties in South Africa like the EFF – this bill specifically hinges on the provision of compensation, as well as the following of a fair and just process (as opposed to outright land seizure as championed by radical groups like the EFF and Julius Malema, or Andile Mnxgitama and Black First Land First) in balancing the needs of private citizens with the state’s ambitions. This ambition is enshrined in the country’s constitution, which intended to make reparations after the forced injustices and inequalities of Apartheid. A portion of the bill does provide the facility to expropriate without compensation, but this only applies in particular circumstances and after the following particular judicial procedures.

Immediately, Donald Trump (and Elon Musk) leapt at the opportunity to call out South Africa and president Ramaphosa; claiming that certain ‘classes’ of people are being treated unfairly and are being subjected to having their land confiscated by the state. Trump has moved to cut financial aid from South Africa to which president Ramaphosa responded by doubling down on the country’s land reform policies and their constitutional position in South Africa’s politics. President Ramaphosa also emphasized the nature of the act, which promises fair compensation.

Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen (left) also issued an open letter to President Trump, in which he reiterated the nature of the act; “However, it is not true that the Act allows land to be seized by the state arbitrarily, and it does require fair compensation for legitimate expropriations in terms of Section 25 of the Constitution. It is unfortunate that individuals have sought to portray this Act as an amendment to Section 25 of the Constitution to allow for Expropriation Without Compensation.” (Steenhuisen, 2025) 

South African politics (particularly as it relates to race relations in the country) has been a focus of conservative America in recent years, ironically, this anti-South African stance has emerged more strongly after South Africa’s pursual of genocidal charges against Israel – which has long been responsible for land expropriation without compensation along with the ethnic cleansing and genocide of local Palestinians. Donald Trump, a massive supporter of Israel and a president whose following is firmly embedded within conservative Christian beliefs, may likely be lashing out at South Africa based on these charges against Israel.  

According to an interview with geopolitical analyst Joe Mhlanga featured in an article by IOL, “the freezing of aid was long coming... the US uses monetary systems to punish other states.” “We all knew this was going to follow when we saw ICJ and the ICC being dragged by some European countries who support the displacement and killing of people in Palestine. The US was not impressed that a country it funds openly opposes its foreign policy in the Middle East.” (Mhlanga, 2025)

Prior to the ICJ and ICC cases, South Africa’s political tensions were introduced to mainstream conservative American discourse in 2018; on the one hand, by the gradual popularization of South Africa’s land reform debate through lobbying efforts by right-wing South African groups like AfriForum, the Transvaal Agricultural Union, and the Suidlanders. 

In that same year, far-right influencer and content creator Lauren Southern (right) released a documentary on YouTube titled Farmlands to viral fame. The documentary frames the murders of rural white South African farmers as a deliberate and targeted genocide of white citizens. Farmlands was one of YouTube’s first independent documentaries; going viral, particularly in white majority nations, where it ignited a mania of South Africa’s issues framed within conservative white nationalist concerns. Caolon Robertson, one of Southern’s colleagues and producers on the Farmlands documentary, has stated that the farm murders in South Africa were deliberately framed within the far-right white genocide narrative.  

According to an interview in The Citizen with Rhodes University sociologist Professor Lucien van der Walt,  

“They sadly show how much of the rest of the world simply does not bother to pay attention to facts when it comes to South Africa,” “Mainstream media plays a role in the way it frames the issues, in its endless narrative of crisis and collapse in South Africa and provides a very skewed view of major controversies.” “The great majority of whites were not farmers, but urban dwellers. At the end of apartheid in 1994, estimates placed the number of white farmers between 60 000 to 100 000 out of a population of around 5 million white people.” 

“The related claim that white farmers are being killed in large numbers is a profound misrepresentation. As an occupational group, white farmers have been victims of a significant level of violent crime. However, many victims of violent crime on farms are black and coloured farmworkers. Black farmers have also suffered. The figures usually provided by people who argue there is a white genocide conflate all rural killings with murders of white farmers, leading to major exaggerations.” (Van der Walt, as cited in Hlatshaneni, 2018). 

According to the BBC,

“Between April 2016 and March 2017, 74 people - of all races - were murdered on farms in South Africa, according to police figures, compared to more than 19,000 murders nationwide in the same period.” “The BBC has found that there is no reliable data to suggest farmers are at greater risk of being murdered than the average South African.”  (Chotia, 2018) 

Dylan Roof, from pictures posted to his website The Last Rhodesian.

The Farmlands documentary’s introduction of South Africa to mainstream conservative America is not to say that there was not an existing awareness of these issues amongst Americans. Fringe extremist groups on the American far-right had already constructed South Africa’s history into their ideologies; as evidenced by the likes of Dylan Roof (left), the Charleston Church Killer, who wore the flag of the old South African government and the old Zimbabwean government. Roof titled his website and manifesto, The Last Rhodesian (after the white ethnostate that previously governed Zimbabwe).  

This growing perspective of white genocide in South Africa was not helped when figures like Julius Malema, of the radical EFF, and Jacob Zuma, then President of the ANC, sang “kill the boer” on different occasions; at an EFF rally and at an ANC rally respectively. This violent rhetoric contributed to a marked spike in fears of violence – particularly amongst rural white citizens – and reinforces this perspective of genocide. (This rhetoric of ‘kill the boer’ and the land reclamation discourse that accompanies it is also supported by conspiracy theories championed by South Africa’s radical left – like the ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ narrative and the ‘White Monopoly Capital’ conspiracy theory driven by disinformation networks in South Africa; for more on that, please see my other works). 

This notion of genocide is part of a long and historic conspiratorial discourse – from the White Genocide theory, to the Eurabia conspiracy theory, and to the Great Replacement Theory. These theories share one common element: the erasure of the white race by non-white populations, facilitated by elite groups in power. In the White Genocide Theory, Jewish elites are responsible for bringing Middle Eastern and North African immigrants into Europe (specifically France) in order to erase the white race. In the Eurabia theory, European political elites conspired with Arabian governments into facilitating Arabian immigration into Europe in exchange for oil deals. In the Great Replacement Theory, Middle Eastern and African populations in white nations are reproducing at a higher rate; thus, facilitating the eventual eclipsing of the white population. Once again, this replacement is facilitated by ‘replacement elites’ in left wing political circles.  

In the South African context, the South African government and media are facilitating the genocide of white citizens; beginning with rural farmers. South Africa represents the extreme outcome envisioned by these theories; where whites become the minority, subjected to the violence of the non-white populations that now outnumber them. This makes South Africa’s issues of great relevance to white nationalist groups around the world – thus seeing South Africa becoming a political talking point in white nationalist politics. Similarly, these conspiracy theories are popular amongst white nationalist groups; especially in Europe, where these theories originate.   

These conspiracies have erupted online and are particularly popular in echo chambers, forums and image-boards across the internet where they fester and evolve into complete ideologies. These ideologies and the echo chambers they fester in have motivated terror attacks by figures like the Oslo Shooter, the Christchurch Killer, the Charleston Church Killer (mentioned earlier, wearing the flag of the old South African government), the Poway Synagogue Killer, the Buffalo Shooter and more. Donald Trump’s arrival to the political mainstage and his use of rhetoric and memes popular in these echo chambers saw their discourse gradually shift from anonymous echo chambers to mainstream American politics and mainstream social networks. 

Kallie Kriel & Ernst Roets of AfriForum, 2018. Twitter

In conservative American politics, the ‘threat’ of immigration from Mexico or from Middle-Eastern countries is a long-standing political voting point with a tradition amongst Republican presidents. Donald Trump’s anti-immigration posturing and the promises of mass deportation benefit greatly from the fears of immigrants cultivated by these conspiracies which construct non-white immigration as the erasure of the white race. Simultaneously, these positions similarly benefit from Trump’s attack on South Africa, constructing it as the confiscation of land from ‘particular’ South Africans – which really means white South Africans; as land reform was meant to soothe tensions over land confiscated and claimed by the white Apartheid Government and given to white South African citizens.  

After the release of Farmlands, other white nationalist parties in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia have also used these particular South African issues as political points to their own white conservative bases. This was further driven by lobbying efforts conducted by the likes of Afriforum (above left) seeking to obtain support in the land expropriation debate from white nationalist parties abroad. This relationship has seen AfriForum’s 'factoids' appearing in articles from right-wing news media outlets outside of South Africa.

The Suidlanders, a more extreme version of AfriForum, also conducted lobbying in the United States. Simon Roche, the leader of the Suidlanders, even met with figures like Alex Jones; where he did a half-hour podcast interview with the notorious INFOwars host and known conspiracy theorist. Roche also met with David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Klu Klux Klan.  

Many of these media outlets – from the likes of Tucker Carlson to smaller scale newspapers – push conservative ideologies and have adapted these farm murders and frame within the immigration fears manifested by conspiratorial beliefs like the Great Replacement.  

In the fervor following the release of Farmlands and the outcry regarding land appropriation from white nationalist groups, Tucker Carlson, the FOX news host, said: “The president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, has begun and you may have seen this in the press — seizing land from his own citizens without compensation, because they are the wrong skin color”. 

Around the same time, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton ignited a wave of South African-focused farm murder mania when he offered visas to “refugee” white farmers escaping the genocide in South Africa. Dutton even claimed that these farmers represent the only real refugee crisis.

Dutton’s actions reflect a long historical association between white nationalist projects in the global south; from South Africa to Australia.  

Australia’s colonial immigration restriction regimes, which originated during the 1850s gold rushes in Victoria, heavily influenced similar polices introduced in Natal, South Africa, in 1896.  

And when Australia federalised colonial immigration laws in 1902, the notorious dictation test, which quizzed potential immigrants in any European language, was in turn borrowed from Natal. 

Australians and “Boers” forged a sort of racial fraternity across the battlefield in the Boer War between 1899 and 1902. Australian light horsemen sent to fight in South Africa found themselves not all that dissimilar to their enemy. 

As Australian soldier J.H.M. Abbott put it in a book on his exploits: “The [Australian] bushman – the dweller in the country as opposed to the town-abiding folk – … is, to all practical purposes, of the same kind as the Boer. In training, in conditions of living, in environment, and to some extent in ancestry, the [Australian] and the Boer have very much that is in common.”  

(Piccini, 2018) 

Collectively, from Farmlands to the land reform issue, 2018 saw a mass media frenzy from conservative outlets representing white nationalist ideologies. In the UK, British right-wing provocateur and political pundit Katie Hopkins mocked Prime Minister Theresa May for her inaction regarding the white genocide in South Africa; and used it as a demonstration of May’s failures to the British public.  

Hopkins visited South Africa with the intention of producing her own Farmlands-like documentary about the white genocide in South Africa. Her trip ended in scandal as she collapsed after a dose of ketamine; and was later prevented from boarding her flight to leave the country for inciting racial tensions during her visit. In a video filmed at the Johannesburg airport (covered by British tabloid The Mirror), Hopkins says, "Amazing security co-ordination from a country where police do not respond to white farm murders because they are 'on lunch break'." 

2018’s media frenzy around land expropriation without compensation, combined with the farm murders/white genocide narrative, saw South Africa rocket into mainstream attention amongst conservative white nationalist groups. South Africa’s ICJ and ICC cases, in which it stands vehemently against the United States and other Israel supporting states, has further added to South Africa’s place in the crosshairs of global white nationalism. Now that the land expropriation act has been signed in, it has given added impetus to pursue such actions against the South African government.  

References 

Chotia, F. 2018. South Africa: The groups playing on the fears of a 'white genocide’. BBC. 01 September. Available: South Africa: The groups playing on the fears of a 'white genocide’  

Hlatshaneni, S. 2018. White genocide is ‘a lie’, ‘threat simply doesn’t exist’. The Citizen. 16 March. Available: White genocide is 'a lie', 'threat simply doesn't exist' | The Citizen 

Makwakwa, T. US freezes funding: Is South Africa being punished for dragging Netanyahu to court? IOL. 03 February. Available: US freezes funding: Is South Africa being punished for dragging Netanyahu to court?

Piccini, J. 2018. Peter Dutton’s ‘fast track’ for white South African farmers is a throwback to a long, racist history. The Conversation. Available: Peter Dutton’s ‘fast track’ for white South African farmers is a throwback to a long, racist history 

Saunders, E. 2018. Katie Hopkins DETAINED in South Africa for 'spreading racial hatred' after taking ketamine while collapsed in the street. The Mirror. Available: Katie Hopkins DETAINED in South Africa for 'spreading racial hatred' after taking ketamine while collapsed in the street - Mirror Online 

Steenhuisen, J. 2025. Expropriation Act: DA clarifies misconceptions – John Steenhuisen.  Politicsweb. Expropriation Act: DA clarifies misconceptions – John Steenhuisen - DOCUMENTS | Politicsweb.