On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to officially confirm his earlier decision this week to freeze aid to South Africa. This decision is in response to a law in South Africa aimed at correcting past injustices from the apartheid era. However, the White House believes that this law discriminates against the country's white minority.

According to a White House explanation of the order, the United States will cease providing aid and assistance to South Africa as long as it permits violent attacks on vulnerable minority farmers and supports bad actors on the international scene. Trump will also unveil a plan to resettle white South African farmers and their families as refugees, according to the White House. Trump was responding to a recent South African law that allows the government to expropriate land from citizens in certain situations. According to the White House, Afrikaners are an ethnic minority who are blatantly discriminated against under the law.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act into law last month. This law allows the government to take land in certain cases, such as when the land is not being used or when redistributing it would benefit the public. The goal of this law is to correct injustices from South Africa's apartheid era when Black people were forced off their land and made to live in areas set aside for non-whites. Elon Musk, a close ally of Donald Trump and the head of Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency has recently discussed this law on social media. He claims it poses a threat to South Africa's white minority.

The order also mentions South Africa's involvement in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice with accusations of genocide. As part of his efforts to implement what he refers to as an America First foreign policy, Trump has paused most US overseas aid, including help to South Africa.