Bozell warns of further US measures after South Africa visa curbs

Rubio accuses Pretoria of pursuing racial grievance against Afrikaners

The US has announced visa restrictions on some South Africans, with US Ambassador to South Africa Leo Brent Bozell III warning on X that the policy was the opening move in a planned escalation of US measures against South Africa.

Bozell, described by The Guardian as a conservative media activist, wrote on X: “As has been made absolutely clear, the time for endless ‘dialogue’ has run its course … This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing the restrictions on X, wrote: “The South African people are being failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority.” He added: “The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanising rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations.”

The US visa restrictions would target “foreign nationals who enact or enable policies that promote race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation in South Africa,” Rubio wrote. The announcement did not specify which individuals had been barred from the US. Spokespeople for South Africa’s presidency and foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The restrictions follow President Donald Trump’s repeated claims during his second term of a “white genocide” in South Africa and against its affirmative action policies, which The Guardian has reported as false.

Since the start of last year, the Trump administration has cut aid to South Africa, barred it from this year’s G20 summit in Miami, and set up a refugee resettlement program for Afrikaners and other South African racial minorities. The administration has simultaneously dismantled refugee and asylum programs for people fleeing war and persecution.

Rubio’s statement criticized South African land expropriation without compensation. South Africa introduced a law last year that allows the government to seize land without paying for it in specific circumstances, including when land is abandoned or held only for speculation. There is no large-scale expropriation of land underway, according to The Guardian.

Afrikaners, who are descended from Dutch and French settlers, ruled South Africa during apartheid. The regime discriminated against and repressed the country’s black majority, while keeping white people safe and wealthy. Since Nelson Mandela took office as South Africa’s first black president in 1994, successive South African governments have pursued racial redress through Black economic empowerment policies and land redistribution programs. Those efforts have had limited impact.

White South Africans typically hold about 20 times the wealth of Black people, according to a 2023 article in the Review of Political Economy, an economic journal.

Some white South Africans claim they are now the victims of racial discrimination — allegations that, according to The Guardian, US conservatives have long promoted. Among white South Africans who make those claims, many point to the repeated use of the apartheid-era chant “Kill the Boer” — “Boer” being another word for Afrikaner — by Julius Malema, whom The Guardian described as a “far-left” opposition leader. Trump played a video featuring the chant during his meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office last year.

The ruling African National Congress has disavowed the chant, and South African courts have ruled it is not meant literally and therefore does not constitute hate speech.