On February 7, the White House cut aid to South Africa, citing a nonexistent threat to white farmers from government land expropriation. To understand the potential consequences of Trump’s executive order, South Africa need only look north. Zimbabwe’s economy has been devastated by sanctions imposed after redistributing colonial-era farmland. Despite efforts to appease the international development community, it seems Washington prefers to keep the country in a state of perpetual crisis, as a warning to others who might consider similar actions.
In July 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Zimbabwe agreed to pay $3.5 billion in compensation to approximately 4,000 white settler landowners for property redistributed during land reforms. This amount, five times the size of Zimbabwe’s May 2020 COVID stimulus plan, was pledged as the United Nations warned the country was “on the brink of man-made starvation.” The deal followed years of pressure, with Zimbabwean officials hoping it would persuade the United States to lift the punitive 2001 Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA), which has blocked the nation’s access to international loans and assistance for two decades. However, Zimbabwe lacked the funds to pay, and ZDERA remained in place.
The conventional narrative portrays Zimbabwe’s land reform as reckless expropriation by the authoritarian Robert Mugabe, leading to economic collapse. This version distorts history. During British colonization, Africans were prohibited from owning land outside “native reserves.” By the mid-20th century, 48,000 white settlers controlled 50 million acres (over 20 million hectares) of prime farmland, while nearly a million Africans were confined to 20 million acres of largely infertile land—an injustice that fueled Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle.
The 1979 Lancaster House Agreement, which ended white minority rule, restricted land reform to market transactions for a decade, ensuring colonial-era land ownership persisted. Despite this constraint, Zimbabwe made significant strides in human development in the 1980s. But by the end of the decade, the World Bank and the IMF imposed an economic structural adjustment program, slashing public spending, removing subsidies, and privatizing state enterprises. The result was mass unemployment, degraded services, and deepening poverty.
By 2000, facing growing domestic pressure, Mugabe’s government began compulsory land redistribution. The program had flaws—inadequate support for new farmers and insufficient resources to rebuild agricultural supply chains. Yet, contrary to disaster narratives, thousands of landless Zimbabweans benefited, while a small elite of white settlers lost their privileged status.
The international response was swift and punitive. When the US Congress passed ZDERA in December 2001, it was explicitly framed as a response to Zimbabwe’s land reform program, portraying Zimbabwe’s actions as a threat to US foreign policy. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and Canada followed with their own punitive measures. For two decades, Zimbabwe has been trapped in a cycle of economic isolation, unable to access the loans and investment needed to rebuild.
The human cost has been staggering. UN human rights experts have repeatedly warned that ZDERA has had an “insidious ripple effect” on Zimbabwe’s economy and the enjoyment of fundamental rights. The Southern African Development Community estimates that Zimbabwe has lost access to over $100 billion in international support since 2001.
The 2020 compensation deal is a cruel irony. Zimbabwe, already bankrupt, must now borrow billions to pay former colonial beneficiaries, hoping to escape a punitive law imposed in response to its land reform program. This creates a perfect trap: a nation forced to finance its subjugation, while its people suffer.
The absurdity is underscored by the US’s refusal to support Zimbabwe’s debt restructuring through the African Development Bank. US officials insist that ZDERA is “a law, not a sanction,” but this is a distinction without a difference—whether through formal sanctions or legislation, the goal remains the same: protecting settler property rights over justice for the colonized.
This is not just Zimbabwe’s story. The Trump administration recently attacked South Africa’s far more cautious land reform efforts, falsely claiming the government was “seizing land from white farmers.” This rhetoric, amplified by far-right media, ignores that South Africa’s land reform—a constitutionally mandated process—seeks to correct apartheid-era dispossession, where white South Africans, 8 percent of the population, control 72 percent of farmland.
Trump’s intervention was never about property rights—it was about preserving a global system that favors former colonizers over the dispossessed. The fight for land justice in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and across the Global South is not just a local struggle—it is a global one.
As Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, once said, debt is “a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa.” Zimbabwe’s plight is a stark reminder of this truth. The international community must reckon with the legacy of colonialism and the systems that continue to enforce it. Until we do, the promise of liberation will remain out of reach for millions.
Zimbabwe’s land reform was not perfect, but it was necessary. The tragedy is not the reform itself but the global backlash punishing Zimbabwe for daring to challenge the status quo. It is time to lift the sanctions, cancel the debts, and allow Zimbabwe, South Africa, and other nations to pursue justice on their own terms. Land reform is not a threat—it is a demand for justice, one the world can no longer ignore.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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