South African President Alludes to Trump’s Threat in Speech to the Nation: ‘We Will Not be Bullied’

By GERALD IMRAY

8:29 PM EST, February 6, 2025

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared to respond to threats from U.S. counterpart Donald Trump by saying in his annual speech to the nation Thursday that his country would “not be bullied.”

The comment by Ramaphosa was seen as a reaction to Trump’s pledge to cut all funding to South Africa over a new land expropriation law — although Ramaphosa did not mention Trump by name.

“We are witnessing the rise of nationalism and protectionism, the pursuit of narrow interests and the decline of common cause,” Ramaphosa said at Parliament in Cape Town. “This is the world that we, as a developing economy, must now navigate.

“But we are not daunted. We will not be deterred. We are a resilient people. We will not be bullied. We will stand together as a united nation and we will speak with one voice in defense of our national interests, our sovereignty and our constitutional democracy.”

That part of the speech was met with applause and cheers by members of Parliament and others attending South Africa’s version of the State of the Union.

Ramaphosa and his government have spent much of the week defending their country’s reputation and its legal processes after Trump posted on Sunday on his Truth Social platform that he would stop all U.S. funding to South Africa because it was “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY,” without saying who. Trump wrote that the country’s leadership was engaged in a “massive Human Rights VIOLATION” that was being ignored by the media.

He said the South African government was “doing some terrible things, horrible things,” again without providing specifics.

Trump’s comments seemed to be in reference to a law South Africa passed last month that allows the government to expropriate land from private parties. Ramaphosa and his government have defended it as being aimed at unused land or land that can be redistributed for the public good and said there are legal protections to stop any land being taken arbitrarily. They said no land has been confiscated.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson said the claims by Trump, and related criticism of South Africa by his adviser Elon Musk — who was born in the country — were “misinformation.” Musk, who left South Africa in the late 1980s, has long criticized its current government as being anti-white and has claimed that the law is designed to take land away from the white minority.

Trump’s claims about South Africa — some of them inaccurate — came soon after he ordered a 90-day freeze on most global aid, threatening hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. gives South Africa for its HIV/AIDS program, the largest in the world.

Ramaphosa said in his speech that the freeze on aid was concerning, and South Africa was looking at ways to keep its essential HIV/AIDS services running.

His 90-minute speech was largely about domestic issues, though, and he announced his government would spend $50 billion over the next three years to improve South Africa’s infrastructure, building roads, bridges and dams, and modernizing seaports and airports. The new infrastructure will “power our economy,” Ramaphosa said.