Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe threatened to withhold critical minerals if necessary from the United States following recent threats by President Donald Trump to withhold funding in response to certain South African political policies.
Mantashe was speaking at the opening of the Investing in African Mining Indaba, as the government launched a diplomatic offensive to reject “disinformation” spread by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on the country’s land reform policies.
Trump and Musk sparked outrage with tweets accusing the SA government of “confiscating” land and perpetuating racist ownership laws.
Trump wrote on social media platform X: “SA is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY. It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention. The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. I will be cutting off all future funding to SA until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.”
Mantashe said that Africa should assert its powerful position as a major global producer of minerals, and take advantage of rising global demand to unlock beneficiation benefits to create a better life for its people.
Africa should not be dictated to by industrialised nations, he said.
“Africa is the world’s richest mining jurisdiction. We should internalise that and use it to our advantage. We have something that the world wants. We are not beggars. We must use that endowment for our own benefit as a continent.”
“They want to withhold funding, but they still want our minerals,” he said. “Let’s withhold minerals. Africa needs to assert its advantage and take charge of the growing demand,” Mantashe said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya described the claims as “unfortunate” and “deliberate distortions” peddled by right-wing parties.
“South Africa is a constitutional democracy that is deeply rooted in the rule of law, justice and equality. The South African government has not confiscated any land,” Magwenya said.
“We are working on refuting that misinformation, no matter how many conversations it will take,” said Magwenya.
The diplomatic row comes after Trump announced that he would be suspending the US President’s global Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) programme.
The country has benefited from the programme since its inception 20 years ago and almost 20 million people around the world rely on it for medications.
However, Magwenya downplayed the impact of the suspension, saying the government was already working on alternative funding sources.
The diplomatic spat has also sparked concerns about the potential impact on SA’s trade relations with the US, especially the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) programme.
However, Magwenya said the Agoa programme is not under threat.
“We should not mix trade and aid, they are two very distinct separate things. As far as aid is concerned, there is no other significant funding we receive from the US except PEPFAR. PEPFAR has already been suspended, and work has already begun as to where we need to make adjustments to bridge that gap,” Magwenya said.
Responding to the spat Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola said the expropriation law in question was not unique to South Africa.
“Many parts of the world have expropriation laws that are used in the public interest…The US and the UK have such laws themselves. We look forward to engaging with our counterparts on deepening the understanding of this law,” Lamola said.
DA leader John Steenhuisen issued a statement yesterday, saying he had a “deep concern” about Trump’s threat to cut critical aid funding in response to the Expropriation Act.
“It is not true that the Act allows land to be seized by the state arbitrarily, and it does require fair compensation for legitimate expropriations in terms of Section 25 of the Constitution,” he said.