CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — The Trump administration has announced that it will impose travel bans on officials it claims are responsible for discrimination against whites and other minority groups in South Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he would revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications from foreign nationals found to be responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or enforcing laws and policies that allow for uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority ethnic and racial groups in South Africa.
“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked,” Rubio said in a statement. “These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”
The South African government has strongly rejected U.S. allegations of discrimination against whites, calling the claims made by the administration since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office last year baseless and a result of misinformation.
Rubio did not identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority whites in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa's Parliament.
It's the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that whites, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa's previous apartheid system of racial segregation.
There are approximately 4.5 million white people in South Africa's population of 62 million, which also includes whites with British or other heritage.
The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows for the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Blacks and others, and a small number of violent crimes against white farmers as evidence of a larger anti-white stance in South Africa.
The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa's move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in a highly emotive case in the United Nations' top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.
The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Trump's second term for purported anti-white and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa's HIV treatment program.
The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other whites, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.
The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa has not changed its policies.
“This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter,” the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X on Wednesday, referring to Rubio's visa announcement.
AP writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Shannon Airport, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026, in Shannon, Ireland. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India, Friday, Sept. 11, 2026. (Kristina Solovyova, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his wife Jeanette Rubio depart the international airport Ernesto Cortissoz in Barranquilla, Colombia, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, Pool)
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is delivering a major state of the European Union speech on Wednesday setting out her priorities for the next year and her vision for tackling the challenges faced by the world’s biggest trading bloc.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is a special guest as von der Leyen gives her address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
The speech is likely to touch on AI, climate change and the fires that have swept Europe this summer, as well as protection for children online, Russia’s war on Ukraine, conflict across the Middle East and international trade tensions.
Last year, she said Europe must stake out its independence as the U.S. continued to impose tariffs on nations and the Trump administration criticized the bloc’s migration policies, warning of “civilizational erasure.”
“Europe is in a fight,” von der Leyen said. “A fight for our values and our democracies.”
“Battle lines for a New World order based on power are being drawn right now,” she said, adding that the EU “must fight for its place in a world in which many major powers are either ambivalent or openly hostile to Europe.”
The event has become an annual ritual modeled on the State of the Union addresses to Congress by U.S. presidents, but it won’t be broadcast widely and few of the European Union’s 450 million citizens across 27 member countries are likely to tune in.
It’s a carefully crafted communications exercise in front of often applauding lawmakers that is appreciated most by EU insiders. Von der Leyen tends to conclude with what has become her rallying cry: “Long Live Europe.”
Routinely, its themes are aspirational. They touch on von der Leyen’s hopes and plans for the commission — the EU’s increasingly powerful executive branch – over the coming year but often lack detail. Critics say the commission’s work is opaque.
Eric Maurice, an analyst at the European Policy Centre think-tank, warned against her using it “to placate political groups” or “to raise the Commission President’s profile and extend the Commission’s political and institutional domain.”
“The EU is facing the crumbling of all the premises on which it was built. The rules-based order with benevolent free-trade and U.S. friendship and support is disappearing,” Maurice said.
The commission proposes laws used across the 27 countries and watches to ensure that those already in place are not being broken. It negotiates trade on behalf of all its members and is Europe’s top antitrust investigator.
At its helm stands the 67-year-old former German defense minister, who has become a prominent figure at summits with leaders around the world, despite being a political appointee who hasn’t been elected to Europe’s top post.
Von der Leyen is hard to ignore. She has accumulated influence over seven years in office by securing vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, managing the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion and support to Ukraine through the war.
She also seems to have the begrudging respect of Trump. She, her chief of cabinet, and her trade commissioners have labored to limit the damage caused by Trump’s tariff war to the European economy.
But the Trump administration has also been riled by the commission’s crackdown on Big Tech companies, many of them in the United States, over their perceived flouting of Europe’s data regulations.
Ahead of the speech, the commission has set up a website dedicated to its leader and the event and has been distributing brochures laying out their achievements over the last 12 months.
The list is considerable, and includes sealing new trade agreements, boosting economic competitiveness, cutting energy costs, spurring defense investment, providing billions of euros in support to Ukraine and slapping sanctions on hundreds of Russian officials and organizations.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives to attend the International Space Summit in Paris Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo via AP)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivers a speech at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
French president Emmanuel Macron, left, greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, Pool)
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen arrives to attend the International Space Summit in Paris Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026. (Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo via AP)
