US Tightens Visa Curbs on South Africans as Trump Feud Deepens
The United States has imposed new visa restrictions on some South African nationals, accusing them of supporting policies that discriminate on racial grounds, opening another front in a diplomatic dispute that has steadily worsened since President Donald Trump returned to power.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the restrictions would target foreign nationals responsible for or complicit in policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination or incitement of imminent violence against minority ethnic groups in South Africa.
The move is part of Trump’s broader campaign against Pretoria, which Washington has accused of failing to protect white South Africans, particularly Afrikaners. South Africa has repeatedly rejected claims of systematic persecution of whites, saying there is no evidence of a campaign of racial violence against the country’s white minority.
Relations between the two countries have deteriorated sharply since Trump took office in January 2025. Washington has cut aid to South Africa, expelled its ambassador and backed the resettlement of white Afrikaners in the United States as refugees.
Trump has also attacked South Africa’s land reform policies and its decision to bring a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, further widening the dispute between Washington and Pretoria.
The tensions spilled into the G20 last year when Trump said the United States would boycott the summit hosted by South Africa. Vice President JD Vance, who had been expected to represent Trump at the Johannesburg meeting, subsequently cancelled his trip. Earlier, Rubio had also skipped a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in South Africa.
Pretoria has maintained that its land reforms are aimed at addressing the legacy of apartheid and has rejected Washington’s portrayal of South Africa as a country persecuting its white population.
The latest restrictions add pressure to already strained ties between two countries that have historically maintained close economic and diplomatic links.
The new measures are the latest use of U.S. immigration policy in the dispute and could further complicate travel and diplomatic exchanges between the two countries.
The confrontation comes as South Africa seeks to balance its longstanding ties with Washington with a more independent foreign policy that has included closer relations with countries such as China and Russia.