President Trump has repeatedly targeted South Africa, making baseless claims of systematic persecution of white Afrikaners.
Published December 18, 2025
US President Donald Trump’s administration has fired the latest salvo against the South African government, accusing authorities of harassment and leaking of personal information against employees who work with white Afrikaners.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the accusations Thursday, a day after South Africa deported seven Kenyans who were brought to the country with U.S. assistance to process Afrikaner immigration.
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South Africa therefore maintains that individuals who enter the country on tourist visas are not entitled to work.
Rubio said in a statement that an American national was also briefly detained at Imbroglio, an act the U.S. government “condemns in the strongest terms.”
He added that the leaking of officials’ passport information was an “unacceptable form of harassment” that risked “putting individuals at risk”.
“If the South African government fails to hold those responsible to account, there will be serious consequences,” he said.
South Africa said no U.S. officials were arrested in the raid, which did not take place at any diplomatic facilities. South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said the United States’ employment of workers with proper documentation “raises serious questions about intentions and diplomatic protocol.”
The Trump administration has been ramping up pressure for months on the government of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing it of tacitly supporting the persecution of the country’s white Afrikaner farmers. The allegations had previously attracted attention in far-right circles.
President Ramaphosa has flatly rejected the claims, and elected officials, including Afrikaner leaders, denounced them as false information at a raucous White House rally in May.
Despite this, the Trump administration continues to relocate members of the Afrikaner community through the U.S. refugee program.
This comes after the regime stopped accepting refugees of almost all other nationalities, dropping the number to a historic low of 7,500 in 2026, a move that rights groups decried as blatant racism.
The Trump administration has previously expelled South Africa’s ambassador to the United States, boycotted the Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg and excluded South Africa from participating in next year’s event in Miami.
