Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy Tuesday targeting South African officials the administration accuses of enabling land seizures and "race-based discrimination," the latest step in a year-long deterioration of relations between Washington and Pretoria.
The State Department said the policy applies to "foreign nationals who are 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." No individual officials were named in Tuesday's announcement, and the department did not immediately detail how the restrictions would be enforced.
A dispute over land reform
The move builds on claims, promoted repeatedly by the Trump administration, that South Africa's post-apartheid land reform law — which allows the government to expropriate land without compensation in limited circumstances — amounts to persecution of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The administration has previously cut aid to South Africa and fast-tracked refugee admissions for white South Africans, while also criticizing Pretoria's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly rejected the characterization, arguing that the reform law targets historical inequities rather than any racial group and that violent crime in the country affects Black South Africans in far greater numbers.
"People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity, are not only white people. The majority of them are black people."
Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
Ramaphosa has called for a coordinated international response to what he describes as false narratives about the treatment of white South Africans, and his government has said it has no policy of discriminating against any racial group. A spokesperson for South Africa's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to the visa announcement.
Relations at a low point
Tuesday's action is the most concrete diplomatic step the administration has taken on the issue since earlier disputes over trade preferences and South Africa's continued G20 role. Analysts on both sides expect the restrictions to further strain a relationship that has already seen aid suspensions, tariff threats and a sharp reduction in high-level diplomatic contact over the past year. It remains unclear whether South Africa will respond with reciprocal measures against U.S. officials, something Pretoria has considered but not yet pursued.
