US President Donald Trumps threatened 30 tariff on South African exports is set to deal an economic blow to a community he has vocally and controversially championed: white farmers.
Citing false claims that white South Africans are being persecuted, Trump has cut aid to the country, publicly berated its president in the Oval Office and invited Afrikaners - descendants of early European settlers - to come to the United States as refugees.
But for white farmers who remain rooted in their homeland and aspire to keep making a living from the land, the tariffs due to come into effect on August 1 are an assault on those ambitions.
It doesnt make sense to us to welcome South African farmers in America and then the rest that stays behind to punish them, said Krisjan Mouton, a sixth-generation farmer in Western Cape provinces citrus heartland.
Its going to have a huge impact, he said, standing among rows of trees heavy with navel oranges on his farm near the town of Citrusdal. Its not profitable to export anymore to the USA.
