The Minister of Mining of the South African Republic (South Africa) Gwad Mantasha called on African countries with rich mineral resources, to stop selling minerals in response to Washington’s threats. Mantash said this at the İndaba 2025.
investment summit.
According to the minister, African countries should use their natural wealth as a lever of pressure on the USA.
“The United States threatens us with the termination of financing because of the law on expropriation we have adopted. President Donald Trump states that Washington will no longer provide financial support to South Africa. If they do not give us money, why should we supply our resources to them?”, -Mantache made.
The minister emphasized that Africa has the world’s largest deposits of natural fossils, such as gold, diamonds, manganese, copper, coal, nickel, cobalt, titanium, lithium and rare -earth metals, which are important for world industry.
“We should not be afraid of threats. If we give up at every intimidation, we will suffer collapse, despite the fact that all the wealth is under our feet,” added Mantache.
Since colonial times, about 75 percent of arable land in South Africa belong to a white minority, which makes up only 9% of the country’s population.
After the abolition of the apartheid policy, the problem of redistribution of the Earth was never solved. The authorities of South Africa developed a plan for the seizure of part of the land from white farmers without compensation in order to transfer them to the black population.
In January, SIRSEAR President Siril Ramafos signed a law that allows the state to remove certain land plots.
After the signing of the law, Donald Trump accused the South African authority of “confiscation of land” and “unfair attitude to certain groups of the population”, announcing the suspension of all financial assistance to this country.
In response, the South African government rejected Trump’s accusations, saying that not a single site was confiscated. The country’s authorities also emphasized that the United States does not provide any financial assistance, with the exception of the PEPFAR program covering 17 percent of the budget to combat HIV/AIDS.
It is assumed that by 2025 about 44 thousand white farmers in South Africa will own 61 percent of 100 million hectares of agricultural lands of the country.
South Africa is one of the largest world suppliers of minerals. The country occupies leading positions in the world for the extraction of gold, diamonds, platinum and iron ore.