The Trump government accuses, without foundation, the South African authorities of “persecution” of Afrikaners, descendants of the country’s European settlers.
Donald Trump increased the annual refugee ceiling in the United States from 7,500 to 17,500 in order to accommodate up to 10,000 additional white South Africans, according to a presidential decision published Tuesday in the US Federal Register. In 2025, the Republican administration announced it would drastically reduce, to 7,500, compared to 125,000 the previous year, the maximum number of refugees welcomed in the United States, saying it wanted to prioritize South Africa’s white minority, in a context of tensions between Washington and Pretoria since Donald Trump’s return to power.
In fact, the 4,499 people admitted so far to the United States as refugees since the start of the budget year (began October 1) are all South Africans, with the exception of three Afghans, according to the US State Department’s table. counting until March 31. The Trump government baselessly accuses the South African authorities of «persécution» Afrikaners, descendants of the country’s European settlers, and criticizes them for their complaint before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “genocide” against Israel for its war in the Gaza Strip.
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An “emergency situation”
In a decision dated May 21 and published Tuesday, the American president invokes a “emergency situation”caused according to him by “a recent increase in incitement to racially motivated violence” from the government and major South African political parties. Consequently, he orders that the ceiling of 7,500 refugees per year be increased by 10,000, specifying that “additional admissions must be granted to Afrikaners from South Africa”.
The Trump administration imposed 30% tariffs on South African products affected by its tariffs, the highest among sub-Saharan African countries, and boycotted the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November. In 2025, Donald Trump issued a decree offering refugee status to Afrikaners before welcoming a first group of around fifty people, an initiative vigorously contested by Pretoria.
Afrikaners make up the majority of South Africa’s white population. It is from this segment of the population that the political leaders who established apartheid, a system of racial segregation that deprived the black population – the vast majority – of most of their rights from 1948 until the beginning of the 1990s, came.
