US restricts visas for South Africans over land-reform dispute

WASHINGTON (MNTV) — The Trump administration has imposed visa restrictions on South Africans it accuses of enabling race-based discrimination and land expropriation without compensation, escalating a dispute rooted in South Africa’s efforts to redress the legacy of apartheid.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the targeted measures — not a blanket ban — would apply to individuals involved in policies Washington says discriminate on racial grounds or threaten minority communities, and accused Pretoria of failing to curb rural crime and “dehumanizing rhetoric” against minorities. 

The framing echoes a narrative, promoted by Trump and figures like Elon Musk, of persecution against South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority — a characterization South Africa’s government, courts, and independent data reject, with no evidence of systematic targeting of white farmers.

South Africa rejected the U.S. account. 

International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola said Washington was misrepresenting the country’s affairs and urged it to respect South African sovereignty, stressing that land reform is a constitutional effort to address centuries of racial dispossession in which the white minority, about 7 percent of the population, still holds a large majority of private farmland. 

The dispute is pointed because South Africa’s post-apartheid order was built precisely to dismantle legally enforced racial hierarchy; Pretoria argues that redressing that history should not be recast as discrimination against whites or used to justify outside pressure. 

The confrontation adds to a broader rupture between the two governments, which have also clashed over South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.