South Africa
On Saturday, a group of white South Africans gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, showing support for former President Donald Trump. The protesters, numbering in the hundreds, carried signs that read “Thank God for President Trump” and voiced their concerns over what they see as racist policies by the South African government, which they claim discriminate against the white minority.
Willem Petzer, an organizer of the protest, addressed the crowd, saying, “We just want to say to America and to the West, despite the foreign policy decisions the South African government has made over the past two decades, the West still has a friend here in South Africa.”
Many of the protesters were from the Afrikaner community, which Trump had recently highlighted in an executive order aimed at cutting aid to the Black-led South African government.
Heinrich Steinhausen, a resident and protester, spoke about the current state of the country, stating, “Unfortunately, the truth of the last 30 years is that we have a divided country, where government policies have positioned South Africa as a fractured nation, corrupting the concept of peace and reconciliation.”
In response, the South African government has rejected claims that its new laws are racially motivated, accusing Trump of spreading misinformation and distortion about the country’s legal changes.
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