President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, released a Tweet on Wednesday evening that has the world in a huff. He issued the tweet after a segment on an American television show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, examined the Land Expropriation Without Compensation proposal.
“I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers,” Trump tweeted.
As Carlson’s report made no mention of farm murders, it is not immediately clear where Trump got the notion from.
I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Trump’s statement echoed that off white supremacists.
“It is extremely disturbing that the president of the United States echoed a longstanding and false white supremacist claim that South Africa’s white farmers are targets of large-scale, racially-motivated killings by South Africa’s black majority,” the ADL said in the statement.
AgriSA released statistics on farm murders that stated that there were 47 South African farmers murdered in a span of 12 months. Non-farm-related homicides total 19 000 in a span of 12 months.
Trump’s tweet also caused the rand to weaken by 2% against the dollar, and also caused a diplomatic dispute within South African government after a US ambassador was called forth to explain the president’s “unfortunate comments”.
An American Senator in Arizona, Jeff Flake, also tweeted in response to Trump, saying that “there’s a danger in conducting foreign policy by tweet after viewing a single press report”.
“First, land reforms have been proposed in parliament in South Africa, but not yet adopted. Second, there is no “large scale killing of farmers” going on in South Africa,” Flake tweeted.
Picture: Twitter/Donald Trump