US announces new visa restrictions on SA over gripes with reform policies - EWN

The United States (US) government has announced new visa restrictions on South Africa over what it describes as “uncompensated land seizures” as well as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the announcement on his social media on Tuesday night, accusing the South African government of failing its people over its policies.

He said the new visa policy will be targeting “foreign nationals involved in race-based discrimination and incitement of imminent violence,” including their family members.

At the centre of the US’s gripe with the South African government are policies like land expropriation without compensation.

Rubio said President Donald Trump has made it clear that South Africans are being failed by a government that is “destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority”.

Rubio said the South African government has consistently failed to “adequately address rural crime” and what it calls “violent and dehumanising rhetoric”, in reference to political anti-apartheid songs.