US ambassador-designate to South Africa Brent Bozell III has pledged to advance President Donald Trump’s call for Afrikaners who “wish to flee unjust racial discrimination” to relocate to the United States — a statement likely to stir diplomatic unease in Pretoria and revive a long-running political flashpoint around race and land reform.

Appearing before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, Bozell said that, if confirmed, he would make the issue one of his priorities as Washington’s top envoy to Pretoria.

“I will support the president’s call for the South African government to rescind its support for the expropriation of private property without compensation and will advance the president’s invitation to Afrikaners who wish to flee unjust racial discrimination,” Bozell told senators.

“I will explore how we can support the South African government in making sure all South Africans can thrive free from the threat of violence,” he added.

Echoes of Trump’s 2018 remarks

Bozell’s statement appears to echo Trump’s controversial 2018 social media post in which the then-president said he had asked his Secretary of State to “closely study South Africa’s land and farm seizures and the large-scale killing of farmers.”

Those comments — widely condemned in South Africa — drew sharp responses from the government and civil society, which accused Washington of amplifying far-right misinformation about “white genocide.”

By aligning himself with Trump’s earlier framing, Bozell’s testimony revives a narrative that South Africa has spent years pushing back against — namely, that its land reform and racial redress programmes amount to persecution of white farmers.

Land expropriation claim not supported by fact

While South Africa has debated constitutional mechanisms to allow expropriation of land for redistribution, IOL has previously reported that the government has not passed laws allowing wholesale seizure of private property without compensation. The policy debate, rooted in efforts to address historic land dispossession, remains bound by the Constitution and subject to judicial oversight.

Officials and analysts have long rejected claims that white landowners face systemic discrimination or violence on racial grounds. The South African Police Service has consistently found that farm murders, while serious, form part of a broader trend of violent crime and are not racially targeted.

Bozell’s comments, therefore, appear to conflate political debate over land reform with claims of state-sanctioned racial persecution — a position likely to draw pushback from Pretoria.

Potential diplomatic friction

The remarks could reopen old tensions between South Africa and Washington, which flared during Trump’s first term when similar allegations gained traction among far-right and white nationalist groups in the United States.

At the time, the South African government dismissed Trump’s comments, calling them “misinformed and regrettable.”

A government official in Pretoria told IOL on Friday that Bozell’s statements “risk reviving discredited myths about our democracy.”

Balancing tone and priorities

Bozell’s mention of “supporting the South African government in making sure all South Africans can thrive free from the threat of violence” suggests an effort to temper his message, portraying it as concern for security rather than interference in domestic affairs.

However, his invocation of Trump’s “invitation” to Afrikaners places his testimony squarely within the rhetoric of Trump politics — where issues of race, migration and land in South Africa have become entangled with conservative culture-war narratives in the United States.

If confirmed, Bozell’s arrival in Pretoria could mark a new phase in US–South Africa relations — one in which domestic American politics and South Africa’s post-apartheid transformation debates collide more directly than at any time in recent memory.

jonisayi.maromo@iol.co.za

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