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Ranga Mataire, Group Political Editor

IN an era of social media frenzy, United States President Donald Trump is changing the conduct of international relations by pronouncing himself on pertinent foreign policy issues even before getting a formal briefing from his bureaucrats. Call it Twitter diplomacy.

Trump’s unconventional conduct, which appear to be informed by whoever is in his earshot at the time, appear to be bereft of facts or contextual understanding. His unbounded use of X (formerly Twitter) has effectively replaced though-out and carefully weighed out guidance on US foreign policy.

Take for example his recent post last Sunday which berated South Africa for “confiscating land” and that “certain classes of people” were being treated “very badly,” adding that he would cut off funding to the country in response. There was no evidence cited by the US President to back up his accusations.

It’s clear to anyone who follows South African politics that no such land has been arbitrarily confiscated and “no horrible things” have been instigated by the Government on the land issue.

So why is Trump ratcheting this as if it’s factual? Well, sometimes being powerful and conscientious don’t go hand in hand. Trump appears oblivious of the enormous power his voice carries and rather uses his voice in a ruckus manner that is both unsettling and sometimes defies logic and normal etiquette.

But let’s be charitable and say maybe President Trump is a thoroughly misinformed individual whose perception of reality is informed by bar-talk. Maybe we need to be generous in our interpretation of President Trump’s outburst and say that he is probably still to settle down for a proper briefing from his Ambassador in South Africa.

Donald Trump

Either way, observers would be keen to know why of all countries President Trump singled out South Africa? There is surely a pattern to the madness and this surely is not a random growl from Washington.

South Africa is a critical geopolitical player in Africa and beyond. It’s one of the biggest economies in Africa and the most industrialised. No one is in doubt that the President of America is aware of South Africa’s status as an important global player.
Therein lies the actual reason why President Trump acted apoplectically against a country that holds so much in terms of trade and global influence.

Reports that South Africa is pushing a Land Bill to address historical iniquities appear to have rattled President Trump. While the Bill does not in fact call for the arbitrary confiscation of land, Trump sought to push through that narrative and it’s surely for a reason.

Fearmongering is a tool politicians have used in order to sway public opinion to justify a certain course of action. Fearmongering was behind the invasion of Iraq. The US deliberately misled citizens that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction ready to be used against the US or its allies by an erratic autocratic leader- Sadam Hussein. In fact, caucus groups were formed to come up with the most plausible lie to justify the invasion of Iraq.

It is the same fearmongering that President Trump might be applying to deliberately arouse public fear and alarm about South Africa’s planned action in redressing the land issue.

While President Trump could not name the people whom he said were having their land confiscated, we all know who owns 75 percent of the land in South Africa. Whites own the most arable land in South Africa which was mostly gotten by violent dispossession of the indigenes.

We also know who President Trump is referring to because this is not the first time he has said it. Not only him, but one of his trusted confidantes, Elon Musk has in the past resorted to the same tactics of “fearmongering” by claiming that a “genocide” against white was taking place in South Africa.

It’s a clear race issue, which both Musk and President Trump are hesitant to publicly lay it out but their statements show where their sympathies lie. They are on the side of white South Africans and not the blacks whose land was historically taken by violence during colonial conquests.

Elon Musk

It’s rather weird that while both President Trump and Musk are conscious beings aware of the dastard wrongs inflicted by apartheid on blacks, they are choosing to feign ignorance by pre-emptively exaggerating the likely impact of the Land Bill being proposed by ANC-led government.

One is obliged to think that the two could be apartheid denialists. For how can a whole President and his friend fail to appreciate the need for an equitable distribution of land as a panacea to building lasting peace and security in a country long beset by man-made disparities?

How can President Trump not be aware of the fact that the genesis of current land disparities lies in South Africa’s colonial past when a small white minority held power and perpetuated that power through the 1913 Natives Land Act, a law that barred Africans from acquiring land beyond a few reserves that made up roughly a tenth of the land?

Contrary to President Trump’s tweet, the South African government is not currently “seizing land from white farmers.” Earlier this month President Ramaphosa explained to the media the effect of land dispossession saying: “We still have a festering wound in terms of how the land was taken from our people and that wound needs to be healed and the only way to heal that wound is to give land to the people. Doing so will ensure a fair and prosperous future for all of our people.”

It appears as though President Trump could have relied on statements or lobby from AfriForum, a white South African supremacist group that has strongly promoted the claim that white farmers are being threatened by violence. AfriForum has of late gained supporters among politicians in places like Australia and recently sent a delegation to speak to Tucker Carlson, who in turn asked President Trump if he was aware of South Africa’s plans to expropriate land.

It is extremely disturbing that the US President echoed a longstanding and false white supremacist claim that South Africa’s white farmers are targets of large-scale, racially motivated killings by the black majority.

Everyone would have expected the US President to have tried to understand the facts and realities of the situation in South Africa, rather than repeat disconcerting, racially divisive talking points used most frequently by white supremacists.

But President Trump knows what he is doing. His lack of regard to facts is rooted in simply pushing a narrative that seeks to single out South Africa as another “axis of evil”, a phrase popularised by a former Republican President George W Bush.
After Zimbabwe embarked on land reform and had sanctions slapped on it, the last thing President Trump and his cohorts would want is to have South Africa following suit.

Given South Africa’s geopolitical influence, President Trump cannot imagine the contagion effect of land redress to countries in Africa and beyond that still have the lingering problem of land disparity.

This is the real fear that President Trump has because America itself as President Ramaphosa has said is a “land of immigrants”. Native Americans were nearly wiped out as European immigrants made their way into what today is the United States of America.

Could it be that South Africa is also being singled out for daring to bringing Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for alleging that the country was committing a genocide against the Palestinian people? Given the unpredictable nature of President Trump’s conduct, one can never know what next the US President will post on social media.