US President Donald Trump has issued an Executive Order suspending financial aid to South Africa, following through on a warning he made earlier this week. The Order references South Africa’s recent amendment of its land expropriation law. President Trump also announced that Afrikaners experiencing racial discrimination could apply for resettlement in the United States. This decision could have serious repercussions for South Africa, potentially leading to the loss of billions in aid and exclusion from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

In a National Security News op-ed, André Pienaar, co-founder of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) in South Africa, argues that South Africa’s leaders should take the Executive Order extremely seriously. He points out that the Executive Order also cites the South African government’s involvement in Iran’s military and nuclear programmes. The Executive Order designates South Africa’s actions as a national security threat to the US and its allies. He notes that out of a total of 54 executive orders issued by President Trump, only two countries have been designated as national security threats to the US.

Op-ed by André Pienaar, co-founder of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO)

Most South Africans believe they live in a country entirely at peace with the world as they go about their daily lives, including travelling abroad.

Few South Africans understand that President Ramaphosa has placed South Africa as a belligerent on the global chessboard in two deadly international conflicts: one in the Middle East and the other in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). These conflicts could have a global impact given their strategic significance.

South Africa has no national interest in being involved in either of these conflicts. In both, there are accusations of hidden commercial interests held by high-ranking ANC officials worth billions of dollars.

South Africa is positioning itself against the US in the DRC

In each of these wars, Ramaphosa is positioning South Africa against the US and its allies, potentially endangering the lives of millions of innocent civilians.

In the DRC, Ramaphosa is at war with the most battle-hardened troops in Africa—those of Rwanda and its ally, M23. Both the United States and Israel maintain strong security relationships with Rwanda. The US reinforced these ties by signing a new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Rwanda in February 2025. This agreement expands on prior arrangements, providing a framework for US personnel and contractors to operate in Rwanda for activities such as training exercises, humanitarian missions, and ship visits.

The US supports the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) through initiatives like aviation security, peacekeeper training, and professionalisation programmes. Additionally, Rwanda’s strategic role in regional stability—particularly its involvement in peacekeeping and combating Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS in Mozambique—aligns with broader US interests in Africa.

An ill-prepared South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was deployed against M23 and Rwanda’s security interests in the DRC in 2024. Throughout January 2025, the SANDF was engaged in a series of firefights with M23 and Rwandan forces in eastern DRC. Rwanda claims the SANDF fired heavy weapons into Rwanda.

The SANDF suffered heavy losses and a strategic defeat when Goma fell to M23 rebels and Rwanda in the last week of January. The SANDF troops are now prisoners of war of the M23 rebel group. M23 disarmed the SANDF last week and converted the SANDF base in Goma into a prisoner-of-war camp. The captured SANDF troops await an uncertain fate, while Malawi withdrew its forces to safety.

Ordinary South Africans are now unknowingly on the global chessboard in a similarly precarious position to the defeated SANDF troops being held hostage in the DRC.

Legal warfare against Israel is part of a Iran’s broader conflict with Israel

The legal warfare campaign that Ramaphosa is conducting against Israel—by bringing the grave charge of genocide against Israel’s leaders at the International Criminal Court (ICC)—is part of a broader hybrid war that Iran and its proxy, Hamas, are conducting against Israel. This war escalated with the terrorist attack on Israel on 07 October. Ramaphosa, through the case he brought against Israel at the ICC, has made South Africa a combatant in this war against Israel and the US, effectively aligning with Hamas and Iran.

Legal warfare, or “lawfare,” is a strategic tool within hybrid warfare, using legal systems and international law to complement traditional military tactics and achieve political or military objectives. South Africa’s ICC campaign aims to delegitimise the state of Israel and its government while Israel fights for its survival and the recovery of its hostages from Hamas.

As a result of South Africa’s charges, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu—a close ally of President Trump—and Israel’s Minister of Defence. This warrant must be enforced by the 115 ICC member states.

This campaign places the South African government in direct opposition to Israel and the US on the global stage.

This perception is not limited to President Trump and the Republican Party. In Congress, 43 Democrats joined Republicans in voting to sanction the ICC for being co-opted by South Africa, Iran, and Hamas in its lawfare offensive against Israel.

Many South Africans claimed to be surprised by President Trump’s Executive Order of 07 February. Many South African leaders and commentators responded by asserting that the situation could be resolved with a visit to Washington, DC, to clarify the extent of land expropriation in the country.

However, they failed to grasp the serious and direct language of the Executive Order.

The title of the Executive Order is “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.” The EO explicitly states:

“South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel—not Hamas—of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements.”

This Executive Order is a direct response to Ramaphosa’s confrontational stance against Israel and US allies. President Trump considers this an attack on America. It clearly states that not only is Ramaphosa supporting the diplomatic and propaganda war against the United States and Israel through hybrid warfare but also that Ramaphosa is “reinvigorating relations with Iran to develop military, and nuclear arrangements.” 

The grave and strategic implications of this particular sentence have been entirely missed by South African leaders and commentators in the flurry of press statements and articles over the weekend. And yet, it raises the most serious national security matter in modern South Africa’s history. 

Three days before the Executive Order on South Africa was signed, President Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) to place maximum pressure on Iran including preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles and neutralising Iran’s terrorist networks. This is the only NSPM signed by President Trump in his second term to date. An NSPM sets a national security priority for the US Government. 

Now, against this background, read the sentence again carefully weighing every word: “South Africa..is reinvigorating relations with Iran to develop military and nuclear arrangements” … “which poses national security threats to our Nation, our allies, our African partners, and our interests.” This is not a US diplomat stating that there is intelligence that South Africa is shipping arms to Russia on the Lady R for use in Ukraine. This is the President of the United States clearly stating that the US has intelligence that Ramaphosa and the ANC are crossing red lines in the relationship they are building with Iran’s military and nuclear programme – one that poses a national security threat to the US on an issue at the top of the US national security agenda. In the security world, it cannot get more serious than this.

The strategic implications of this statement are earth shattering. It indicates that the US has intelligence that the ANC is clandestinely building a deep military partnership with Iran at both a tactical and a strategic level, including nuclear cooperation which threatens Israel, the US, and allies.

This has implications for international security but also for the security of South Africans at home. It places a completely different perspective on the attack on the Jewish community center in December 2024 when operatives on motorcycles threw an improvised explosive device (IED) at the Sampson Centre in Cape Town. 

This is not merely a wake up call to South African leaders that Ramaphosa has recklessly embroiled South Africa in a global war with Israel and the US. 

South Africa now faces the dire prospect of devastating economic losses because of Ramaphosa and the ANC. The US is an essential trading and investment partner of South Africa. It is not only the $500M of aid that the US provides to South Africa that is at risk, or the loss of the US as an export market that exceeds $10 billion for South African goods, or South Africa’s access to US technology that every part of daily life in South Africa depends on. South Africa’s entire $373 billion GDP economy is US dollar dependent. South Africa is integrated into the international banking system. All of this is at risk of crippling sanctions. Targeted sanctions on the culprits will have secondary effects on the entire nation.

Worse, given that Ramaphosa and the ANC have placed South Africa directly on the battlefield as an ally of Iran and Hamas in a deadly war and have crossed red lines on the most serious military threat in the Middle East- Iran’s nuclear program- there is terrible risk of the loss of many more innocent lives in the future.