US travel bans for South African officials alleged to be behind anti-white discrimination

The United States has announced a travel ban on South African officials it claims are behind discrimination against white people and other minority groups.

US visas will be revoked and visa applications rejected for "foreign nationals who enact or enable policies that promote race-based discrimination, incite violence, or enable land confiscation without compensation in South Africa," US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on X on Tuesday.

He accused the South African government of an "obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority".

The South African government had, he said, "consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violent and dehumanising rhetoric, and race-based discriminatory policies against Afrikaners and other minority populations".

Mr Rubio, who did not identify any officials who would be targeted, said in a statement that such behaviour was "incompatible with the pillars of America's foreign policy".

‌South Africa's foreign ministry ‌said on Wednesday ​that it had noted ​"with ‌concern" the US move, adding the announcement ​aligned with "the mischaracterisation ​of ​South Africa's domestic policies ⁠by fringe groups".

In May last year, US President Donald Trump played a video purporting to show the "genocide" of white farmers at a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who told the US president he had been misinformed.

It's the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa. It claims that white people, who make up around 4.5 million of its roughly 62 million population, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against.

The US has based such claims on a controversial South African law permitting the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for black people and others, and a small number of violent crimes against white farmers.

The Trump administration has strongly criticised South Africa's move to accuse US ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in a highly emotive case in the United Nations' top court in 2024. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.

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South African officials have been barred from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the US and aid for South Africa's HIV treatment programme has been stopped.

The US has also launched a refugee programme for Afrikaners and other white people, claiming they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.

The restrictions are just "the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America's firm resolve in this matter", the official US Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa account posted on X on Wednesday.

Afrikaners, descended mainly from Dutch and French 17th-century colonial settlers, were integral to the apartheid system of racial segregation, which was rolled back in the early 1990s.

(c) Sky News 2026: US travel bans for South African officials alleged to be behind anti-white discrimination