Old video shows SA president rejecting Trump land grab claims in 2018, not 2025

“South African President Cyril Ramaphosa: ‘I don’t know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land. South Africa does not belong to Donald Trump. He must leave us alone. Stay out of our issues’ (sic),” wrote an X user who shared the video on February 3, 2025.

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Screenshot of the misleading X post, taken on February 5, 2025

The pixelated, two-minute clip circulating online shows Ramaphosa standing behind a podium.

“South Africa is our land. South Africa belongs to all the people who live here in South Africa. It does not belong to Donald Trump. He can keep his America,” Ramaphosa says in the video, adding the country will find solutions to its problems without Trump.

Similar misleading claims were shared thousands of times on multiple platforms including X, Facebook and TikTok. 

The posts began circulating after Trump announced on February 2, 2025, that he was cutting off all future funding to South Africa for “confiscating” land and “treating certain classes of people very badly” (archived here).

South Africa responded to the accusations, but the Ramaphosa video in question dates back to Trump’s first term in office. 

2018 video

A reverse image search using the video verification tool InVID-WeVerify revealed that the footage has been online since 2018.

Among the results was a news report uploaded to YouTube by South Africa’s state broadcaster SABC on August 26, 2018. Captioned “Pres Ramaphosa hits back at Trump”, the bulletin covered remarks made by Ramaphosa after Trump entered the fray on land rights and farm murders in South Africa days earlier. 

Trump, less than two years into his first term as president, tweeted on August 23, 2018, that he had called on his Secretary of State to look into South African land and farm seizures and the killing of farmers (archived here).

In response, Ramaphosa took up the cudgels.

“I don’t know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land because he has never been here. He must keep his America. We will keep our South Africa; that is what he must do. South Africa is our land,” Ramaphosa said at the time (archived here).

A comparison between the broadcast footage from 2018 and the clip circulating in 2025 shows Ramaphosa wearing the same striped tie and standing in front of the identical backdrop.

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Screenshot comparison of the 2018 video on YouTube (left) and the video circulating in misleading claims in 2025, taken on February 5, 2025

At the time, AFP Fact Check debunked numerous claims about this incident, including a viral fabricated tweet claiming that Ramaphosa said he would send his police minister to investigate US mass shootings. 

2025 Expropriation Bill

The land issue in South Africa has long been divisive, with efforts to redress the inequality of white-rule drawing criticism from conservatives including South Africa-born Elon Musk, a powerful Trump adviser (archived here).

In the latest showdown, South Africa’s official response to Trump’s allegations on February 3, 2025, was that no land had been confiscated (archived here).

“South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality,” Ramaphosa said on X.

Ramaphosa signed a bill in January 2025 stipulating that the government may, in certain circumstances, offer "nil compensation" for property it decides to expropriate in the public interest (archived here). 

The bill has reignited fears of a crisis similar to the post-independence white-owned farm seizures in Zimbabwe. 

However, Ramaphosa said the newly adopted Expropriation Act “is not a confiscation instrument” but a legal process that “ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution”.

Ramaphosa added that South Africa receives no significant US funding except for the USAID programme for AIDS relief, PEPFAR.

South Africa is one of the largest recipients of funds from PEPFAR, a project launched in 2003 and now paused by Trump’s 90-day funding freeze on Washington's foreign aid (archived here).

Ramaphosa said he was willing to engage with the Trump administration over “land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest”. 

“We are certain that out of those engagements, we will share a better and common understanding over these matters,” said Ramaphosa.

South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, has since criticised AfriForum — a minority rights organisation for Afrikaners — for its “misinformation campaign” on land reform, which it believes influenced Trump (archived here).