South Africa relationship needs a rethink. But the Trump administration’s approach is only making a bad situation worse.

Trump's order stops hundreds of millions of dollars a year the U.S. gives South Africa, most of it to help its HIV/AIDS response. The U.S. gave South Africa around $440 million last year and funds 17% of South Africa's HIV program through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

O ne of the first things Donald Trump did on retaking office was to halt America’s programme to settle refugees. That is bad news for Africans who might want to flee war or oppression. But the White House is making an exception for a group of white Africans: the roughly 2.

Though the name of Donald Trump went unmentioned, everyone knew who Ramaphosa was talking about. A few days earlier, the US president had written on his Truth Social platform that South Africa was “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.