US Embassy to submit petition from white South Africans to Trump for ‘immediate action’ [VIDEO]

The U.S. Embassy in South Africa said it will submit a petition from a group of white South Africans seeking to change South Africa’s policy to U.S. President Donald Trump.

About 1,500 Afrikaners, including a handful who had slept on the pavement outside the American Embassy in Pretoria on Friday night, handed over a memorandum on Saturday to thank Trump for his support.

Memo to Trump

They gathered at the U.S. Embassy under the banner “Make South Africa Great Again”.

Singing the old South African national anthem, Die Stem, Willem Petzer, who appeared to be the convener of those present, handed a  26-page memorandum which outlined the history of the Expropriation Act, farm murders as well as all racial laws against white South Africans to the US Embassy in Pretoria to cheers from the crowd.

The American Embassy confirmed it received the memorandum in a post on X.

“The U.S. Embassy in South Africa received a petition this morning addressed to President Donald Trump, seeking U.S. support to change policies and laws affecting the Afikaner community in South Africa. We will transmit the full text of the document to the president and Secretary of State for immediate action.”

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Targeting whites

Speaking to the crowd earlier,  Petzer claimed the Expropriation Act was meant to target whites “and benefit blacks, but we know it’s for the benefit of just a few”.

“The ANC is still committed to land reform, but the ANC is not a Marxist organisation; it’s a racial organisation which makes only a few rich.”

“We just want to say to America and to the West, despite the foreign policy decisions the South African government has made over the past two decades, the West still has a friend here in South Africa,” Petzer said.

Watch white South Africans gathering at the US Embassy in Pretoria

Funding to SA

Trump has halted funding to South Africa by signing an executive order against the country which alleges human rights issues in the country in response to the government’s land policy.

“South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”.

Influential Trump adviser Elon Musk — who was born and raised in South Africa has also criticized South Africa’s government and claimed it is anti-white for years, although some have questioned his motivations.

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AfriForum and Orania

Despite the white South African’s grievances with South Africa and its policies, two Afrikaner movements, AfriForum and the Orania Movement, rebuffed Trump following the US president’s claims.

AfriForum said it was “here to stay” and wasn’t going anywhere. At the same time, the Orania Movement snubbed Trump, saying it had no intention of leaving South Africa to become refugees in America.

“We are not necessarily interested in ducks, dollars, handouts and help, [that], we’ve got, we’ve already got [that to] an extent. We want recognition. We want recognition from abroad, locally and from our peers, Head of the Orania Movement Joost Strydom said.

“We cannot go back to Europe. We do not belong in Europe, we belong in Africa. So, if people recognise us as part of this continent and this country in terms of our history…we want to build a future for us here.”

‘SA will not be bulled’

President Cyril Ramaphosa during his 10^th State of the Nation Address (Sona) delivered a measured response to Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio’s unprecedented attacks.

Rubio echoed his leader’s sentiments, saying he will boycott the upcoming G20 Summit in Johannesburg in November because South Africa “is doing very bad things.”

While Ramaphosa did not mention Trump directly during the Sona, he addressed rising global tensions in his speech.

“In the face of these challenges, we are witnessing the rise of nationalism and protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause. This is the world that we, as a developing economy, must now navigate. But we are not daunted. We will not be deterred. We are a resilient people. We will not be bullied. We will stand together as a united nation and we will speak with one voice in defence of our national interests, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy,” Ramaphosa said.

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Expropriation Act

Leading legal expert and former member of Ramaphosa’s advisory panel on land, Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi said South Africa should have passed a law to redistribute land equitably when the country’s final constitution was passed.

Ngcukaitobi said that of all the clauses in the new Expropriation Act of 2024, none had generated more heat than section 12(3), which enables the state to offer “nil compensation” in certain instances to an owner of expropriated property.

“We should have passed a law in 1994 already, or at least 1996 when the final constitution was passed to enable the state to redistribute land on an equitable basis. There is an injunction in the Constitution that requires the state to do that the state has never passed it, and it has no explanation why it didn’t pass it.”

Support for SA

While the US embassy claims South Africa has taken a position against America and its allies, several countries have pledged their support for South Africa after Trump signed the executive order cutting aid to the country.

France, Germany, Italy, the European Union, and the other member states expressed their shared “common attachment” to multilateralism, the rule of law, non-racialism, and non-sexism in South Africa.

The countries’ commitment significantly boost South Africa as it prepares to host the G20 talks for foreign ministers in November.

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