The South African government said it allows expropriation of land if it is in the public interest, but it does not allow property to be taken arbitrarily.
A legal challenge to South Africa’s controversial Expropriation Act that allows the government to seize private land began in Cape Town on Aug. 3.
On Feb. 2, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending future funding to South Africa in response to the law, introduced by the African National Congress (ANC) government of President Cyril Ramaphosa. Trump has also imposed high trade tariffs on South Africa.
Trump said the law could be used to confiscate the property of white farmers, and in May 2025, when Ramaphosa visited the White House, Trump confronted him and showed him a video supporting allegations of mass violence against Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who arrived in South Africa more than 300 years ago.
Dozens of white South Africans arrived in the United States on May 12, 2025, after being granted refugee status under the Trump administration’s new admission program.
The Expropriation Act was approved by South Africa’s parliament in March 2024—three months before the ANC lost power in an election—and was then signed into law by Ramaphosa in January 2025.
The bill replaces the Expropriation Act of 1975, which required the state to compensate owners for the land it sought to seize.
The legislation was passed as part of Ramaphosa’s efforts to address economic inequality following decades of white minority rule in South Africa that ended in 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected president as head of an ANC government.
The ANC lost power after the June 2024 election and is now the largest party in a unity government, which includes the Democratic Alliance (DA), which has joined activists challenging the Expropriation Act in the Western Cape High Court.
Making a statement outside the court, the DA’s national spokesman, Jan de Villiers, said that it was standing up for the rights of property owners.
“Whether you own a house, land, an apartment, or a farm, you have the value of that asset, and it belongs to you, and it should be protected because you’ve paid for it,” de Villiers said.
