President Donald Trump issued an executive order on February 7 halting foreign aid to South Africa from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other federal agencies over concerns that Afrikaners—South Africans of European descent—had been subject to “government-sponsored race-based discrimination.

South Africa has neither suspended U.S. businesses from operating in the country nor stopped exporting minerals to the U.S., contrary to a claim made online in response to Washington’s decision to cut aid.

In mid-February 2025, posts on social media sites like Facebook (archived here) alleged that the nation of South Africa had announced a ban on all United States-based businesses there and was halting all mining exports to the U.