(UN)DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS: ‘Respect our sovereignty’ — SA responds to latest US sanctions

Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola rejects US travel bans tied to a Trump-era order, urging diplomacy as South Africa defends expropriation reforms and faces ongoing legal challenges.

The South African government has responded to the US imposition of targeted travel sanctions by insisting that South Africa has the “sovereign right to put in place laws that address the nation’s concern over centuries of racial injustice”.

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola urged the US to respect SA’s democracy and sovereignty over its choice of policies to correct the wrongs of the past and said the US should continue talking to Pretoria about its issues rather than taking “unilateral action”.

He was responding to an announcement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that visa restrictions – travel sanctions – would be imposed on South Africans responsible for, or complicit in “the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa”.

Rubio referred to US President Donald Trump’s executive order of February 2025 in which he condemned “government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa”.

The Trump administration has made clear it wants SA to address black economic empowerment (BEE), expropriation without compensation, the “Kill the Boer” Struggle chant and farm murders.

Kallie Kriel, the CEO of AfriForum, welcomed the fact that the US travel sanctions “will not harm ordinary South Africans or the country itself, but [are] specifically directed at politicians and others guilty of gross human rights violations against minorities and Afrikaners”.

But the organisation Afrikaners vir Suid-Afrika (AfSA) rejected the US action, which it said had escalated the dispute between the two countries from criticism and aid cuts to targeting individuals.

It also criticised the US ambassador to SA, Leo Brent Bozell, for issuing (on X) “the needlessly belligerent warning that the new directive is ‘the first step in a series of escalatory measures.’ This amounts to pressure to change South Africa's laws, court outcomes, and foreign policy.

The United States remains gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination occurring against the Afrikaners and other minority populations in South Africa, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans. https://t.co/HdadCjCjq4

“Some Afrikaner organisations have applauded the directive,” AfSA said, referring to statements like the one made by AfriForum. “But they don’t speak for all Afrikaners – and on social media their stance has fuelled hostility toward the whole Afrikaner community.