US President Donald Trump. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo/picture alliance)
More than 100 parliamentarians from around the world have signed an open letter calling on US President Donald Trump to revoke his February 7 executive order suspending all aid to South Africa.
The group said the decree saw Trump punishing a sovereign country for pursuing the policy objectives of its choice at home and abroad.
“President Trump’s 7 February order halts critical financial aid under the false pretense of protecting Afrikaners from ‘government-sponsored race-based discrimination’,” they wrote.
“In reality, Trump’s order marks a retaliation against South Africa for daring to pursue its self-determination at home and express its solidarities abroad.”
The White House justified the decree by accusing South Africa of racially persecuting the country’s white Afrikaner minority, including by way of the recently promulgated Expropriation Act, and fomenting terrorism in the Middle East.
“While championing terrorism and autocratic regimes abroad, South Africa has committed similar human rights violations at home,” it asserted in the document published as a so-called fact-sheet.
“The government of South Africa blatantly discriminates against ethnic minority descendants of settler groups.”
The group of MPs said land reform was a necessary pursuit given the legacy of apartheid.
“The proposed land reform is a necessary response to historic inequality: white South Africans — 8% of the population, control 72% of freehold farmland.
“Yet the U.S. now seeks to weaponise aid for South Africa’s pursuit of social and economic justice in their own country.”
They said Trump’s order harked back to a historic low point in US foreign policy, when Washington supported the apartheid regime and labelled President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC a terrorist organisation.
“This order echoes the darkest chapters of US foreign policy, recalling its support for apartheid and its labeling of the African National Congress as a terrorist organisation.
“We write today not only in defence of South Africa, but also in defence of the UN Charter that guarantees the sovereign equality of all nations without fear of foreign intervention.”
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce this week, in response to a question about the expulsion of South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, reiterated the White House’s objections to South Africa’s policy decisions and said the United States hoped to encourage a policy rethink.
The ministry of international relations, said this raised concerns about meddling in domestic policy.
“We are concerned that the comments could suggest that the US wants to interfere in SA’s sovereign, national policy,” ministerial spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told the Mail & Guardian.
“This is a matter which we will pursue in our engagement with our US counterparts.”
Trump’s decision has been of devastating consequence to HIV/AIDS treatment programmes in particular, for which most of the $ 439.8 million (R7.976 billion) in aid given to South Africa in 2023 (the last fully reported year of assistance) was destined.
The group of MPs said it placed at risk not only essential treatment but jobs.
“The humanitarian consequences of Trump’s retaliation are dire: 6 million South Africans on HIV/AIDS treatment risk losing PEPFAR funding, while 350,000 jobs and $7 billion in exports are now under threat.”
The group of 107 signatories, which counts MPs from the United Kingdom to Australia to Argentina, France, Finland, Turkey and Senegal, called on their governments to step into the breach.
“We call on our own governments to take appropriate action, pursuing new mechanisms to support South Africa’s public health programs and to expand new avenues for international trade to bolster its economy against efforts to exclude it.”
“The struggle for South African democracy did not end with apartheid. This moment demands the renewal of international solidarity with the South African people as they face this assault on their right to self-determination.”
The letter was co-ordinated by Progressive International, an organisation that mobilises progressive thinkers and activists. The signatories include British MP Jeremy Corbyn, who led the ruling Labour Party until last year.
