by Nate LaMar
Recently I made my fourth business trip to South Africa, although the first for my current employer. While I don’t pretend to be an expert on South Africa, for years I have studied in-depth its troubled history, politics,and economics, and engaged first-hand in its often-turbulent business climate.
President Trump recently abolished the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through billionaire (and South African native) Elon Musk. In adhering to West Point’s strict Honor Code and Cadet Prayer (choosing the harder right over the easier wrong), my classmate, John Voorhees, who managedUSAID’s IT Security, refused to turn over its databaseto Musk’s deputies upon their entry, as they lacked security clearances. Just for doing his job, he was among the first USAID employees to be fired. He should someday be featured in a modern-day adaptation of “Profiles in Courage.”
While I am the first to admit there were some bizarre, and even sordid, USAID projects that never should have existed in the first place (though Musk admittedly lied about one (Financial Times, Feb. 18)), within almost any taxpayer-funded budget, one can find waste, fraud, and abuse, ranging from government contract cronyism,to nepotism, to lavishly unnecessary hotel expenses (I witnessed this in the defense industry and called it out to my chain-of-command.). But just as the Voice of America helped Western democracies to win the Cold War and dislodge Communism in most, but not all, of the world, USAID has also helped to “win hearts and minds” in the interests of foreign policy, especially in South Africa with its 32.1% unemployment (The Economist, Feb 15-21, 2025).
As if abolishing USAID weren’t enough, Trump announced a cut to all of South Africa’s aid from the US. This included ending the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)funding, through which USAID was the conduit. South Africa’s high rate of AIDS is a legacy of apartheid, when black migrant laborers were not allowed to bring their families to live with them. As a result,prostitution nearlaborers’ campsran rampant. The cancellation of PEPFAR is amistake, not only for public healthreasons, but also to keep South Africa from drifting further into the orbit of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), an expanding group that seeks to replace US global leadership, butis essentially a front for China’s “debt trap diplomacy” Belt & Road Initiative.
The reason Trump cut all aid is because South Africa recently revived talk of land expropriation from its farmers without compensation. As a result, Trump announced that South African farmers could come to the US as refugees (Henry County, Indiana already has some Afrikaners working at a Dutch dairy farm). I agree with this offer by Trump, especially because since apartheid ended with South Africa’s first free election in 1994, over 7,000 white farmers have been murdered. Within a few days of Trump’s announcement, the server crashed at the South African Chamber of Commerce in the US, as itreceived 20,000 inquiries aboutthe offer (The Citizen, Feb 12)! Gibson, an Uber driver from Zimbabwe, told me that, if South Africa expropriates land from its farmers without compensation, it will become anotherZimbabwe-like basket-case unable to feed itself. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the most left-wing party in South Africa’s Parliament, recently revived the apartheid era song, “uMamauyajabulaumangibulalaiBhunu(“My mother is happy when I kill a Boer”). Boer means farmer in both Afrikaans and Dutch.
It is my hope that USAID can be revived with stricter controls, perhapsunder the Dept. of State. We cannot afford to turn our backs on South Africa now; China and Russia will take full advantage.
Nate LaMar, an international director, served as Henry County Council President from 2009-2019.
