The SA Land Expropriation Act is in the headlines this week as US President Donald Trump threatened to cut off foreign funding to South Africa. On the back of this news, the Rand/Dollar exchange rate dipped as President Cyril Ramaphosa went public in defence of the SA Land Expropriation Act.
Now, however, experts are saying South Africa-born Elon Musk could be the one pulling the strings behind the scenes. Musk was the single largest individual donor to Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign, contributing $277 million, reports The Citizen. This week Musk took to social-media platform X to reply to President Ramaphosa. He posed the question why South Africa still has ‘openly racist land-ownership laws’.
SA LAND EXPROPRIATION ACT
So, with Trump and Musk taking to the public square of social media, what exactly is the SA Land Expropriation Act? And do the accusations of, “South Africa confiscating land from certain classes of people … who are being treated very badly …” hold any water? According to BusinessLivequoting Reuters, the accusations appear to be baseless.
White landowners currently still possess three quarters of South Africa’s freehold farmland, according to the last available land audit (2017). A mere 4% is owned by blacks, and the SA Land Expropriation Act, signed last month by Ramaphosa, aims to redress this imbalance. Furthermore, no land has yet been expropriated under the act. However, some land restitution has happened under the ‘willing buyer, willing seller’ model since 1994. There is a misconception that the new act will allow land to be seized arbitrarily.
UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTION
Moreover, the SA Land Expropriation Act has been the subject of acrimonious debate for three decades. Those against it argue land expropriation is unconstitutional, violates basic property rights and will deter long-term foreign investment. Nevertheless, after exhaustive parliamentary debate, the law is carefully worded. It forbids seizing of land unless it can be demonstrated it is in the public interest and requires authorities to reach an agreement with the owner first.
So, what’s at stake if we remain locked in an impasse with the US over the SA Land Expropriation Act? In 2023, the US delivered $440 million in assistance to South Africa. $315 million of which went to our HIV/Aids programme. The balance went to smaller sectors like health issues, farming, education, trade policy and energy. However, a quarter of South Africa’s $15-billion exports to the US only happens thanks to preferential tariffs under the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA). This is mostly automotive exports and could be in serious jeopardy going forward.
THE ELON FACTOR
But what can explain the vitriol directed towards South Africa currently? Political experts believe it could be Zionist groups and Israelis in the US are unhappy with how outspoken South Africa was about Palestine. And, back in 2023, Elon Musk accused the South African government of seeking a ‘genocide of white people’. In Trump’s first administration he said there were large-scale killings of white farmers in South Africa and violent takeovers of land. However, of the roughly 20 000 murders committed in SA every year, 50 are white farmers.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE EXPROPRIATION ACT AND TRUMP’S VITRIOL TOWARDS SOUTH AFRICA?
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