South Africa’s white exodus reveals deep discontent, but Trump’s America may not offer the refuge many expect.
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US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference with unseen Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 4, 2025. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
Be careful what you wish for.
That might be a salutary warning for the estimated 50 000 South Africans who have expressed interest in taking up US President Donald Trump on his offer to grant asylum to “Afrikaner refugees” fleeing alleged persecution in this country.
The United States is hardly paradise – no matter what Hollywood would have you believe.
Many who voted for Trump did so in the belief that he would put a stop to soaring inflation, the influx of illegal aliens and create replacements for the jobs lost overseas in the past two decades.
So far, the Republican leader has been tilting at the windmills of Gaza – where he says he will “own” it and promises a massive “Riviera type development” – and of Greenland, which he wants to take over.
Oh, and he also renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, before offering a home to brutalised Afrikaners and threatening to punish our ANC government.
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None of the myriad executive orders he has signed up to now have addressed the real “pork barrel” issues for most Americans, who are becoming poorer by the day, while the rich, including his tech-bro backer, Elon Musk, simply rake in more billions.
Trump’s threatened tariffs on imports will, according to experts, not only destroy jobs in the US, but will supercharge inflation.
That, you white Afrikaner “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, is what awaits you as you walk down the aircraft stairs.
This week, a deluge of more than 20 000 queries crashed the e-mail server of the SA Chamber of Commerce in the US after Trump announced the refugee programme.
If nothing else, that confirmed many Afrikaners and whites are desperate to leave this country.
And, whatever else you think about Trump, that reality needs to be addressed.
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