On South Africa land reform, Trump muddies a complex debate

Background: Carlson had interviewed a senior policy analyst at a conservative Washington think tank, who recently wrote an article calling on Trump to “warn South Africa on land expropriations,” comparing the new South African policy with that of Zimbabwe — a common distortion of the debate.

But South Africa is manifestly not Zimbabwe: The Mugabe regime expropriated, without compensation, private land using vigilante violence and ignoring the rule of law. By contrast, South Africa is a constitutional democracy with a record of following the law and with a strong and independent judiciary. The constitution limits what parliament can do and acknowledges the right to private property, while South African media and civil society play a critical role in keeping the government honest. Land reform will be carried out in a transparent political process and the results will likely be challenged in the courts, which have a history of standing up to the government and whose decisions are not ignored.

The bottom line: With respect to the land issue as well as the murder rate, statistics are generally poor. There is not a consensus definition of farmer or farm worker, or how many of them are white, which doubtlessly clouds what statistics there are. That being said, that white South Africans own a majority of land and account for an outsized proportion of economic activity is clear, and there is a general consensus that land reform needs to happen, just not how.

John Campbell is the Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.