Keypoints:
- Pretoria dismisses ‘white genocide’ narrative
- Afrikaner leaders reject US relocation plan
- Trump policy sparks diplomatic backlash
THE South African government has sharply criticised the United States for prioritising refugee applications from white Afrikaners, saying claims of a ‘white genocide’ in South Africa are unfounded and lack credible evidence.
In a statement on Friday, Pretoria said the narrative promoted by Washington has been widely discredited and rejected even by members of the Afrikaner community. It cited an open letter published earlier this week by prominent Afrikaners who denounced the idea of racial persecution and branded the proposed relocation scheme as discriminatory.
Officials added that the small number of white South Africans applying to move under the US refugee programme indicated there was no evidence of targeted persecution.
Trump sets record-low refugee cap
The criticism follows an announcement by US President Donald Trump’s administration to reduce the annual refugee intake to 7,500 — the lowest cap in modern American history. Although the White House has not released figures showing how many white South Africans have been admitted, the move to prioritise their applications has drawn condemnation from both South African authorities and human rights groups.
Earlier this year, Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners — descendants mainly of Dutch and French settlers — after President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a land reform law enabling the government to expropriate land without compensation in limited cases.
Crime data contradict genocide narrative
South Africa’s most recent crime statistics show no indication that white citizens are disproportionately targeted in violent attacks compared to other racial groups. Most private farmland remains in white ownership, despite white South Africans comprising just over seven percent of the population.
Pretoria said the facts clearly undermine any suggestion of genocide or racial persecution, describing such claims as politically motivated attempts to distort South Africa’s land reform efforts.
Diplomatic tensions rise
Relations between Washington and Pretoria have deteriorated since South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled months ago after accusing Trump of ‘mobilising a supremacism’ and using the rhetoric of ‘white victimhood as a dog whistle’.
During a meeting in the Oval Office in May, Trump reportedly confronted President Ramaphosa, claiming white farmers were being ‘killed and persecuted’. The US president even presented an image he alleged showed the bodies of slain white farmers — but a Reuters investigation later revealed the photo was actually taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The White House declined to comment on the misidentified image. It also played a video said to show burial sites of murdered white farmers, which was later found to depict a 2020 protest where crosses symbolised farmers killed over multiple years.
Pretoria said these repeated inaccuracies highlighted the dangers of misinformation influencing foreign policy, warning that such actions threaten to undermine international understanding of South Africa’s complex history and ongoing efforts to redress racial inequality.
