Gwede Mantashe has said the continent should not fear Washington’s threats
South Africa’s minister of mineral and petroleum resources, Gwede Mantashe, has called on African countries to withhold mineral exports to the US. The comments come after US President Donald Trump announced plans to cut aid to South Africa over its land expropriation policies.
Speaking on Monday at the Investing in African Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town, Mantashe stated that African nations should not be afraid of US threats.
“Let us withhold minerals to the US,” the minister said. “If they don’t give us money, let’s not give them minerals… we are not just beggars, let us use that endowment for our benefit… If as a continent we are [paralysed] with fear, we are going to collapse, but with minerals at our doorstep.”
The call follows Trump’s announcement that the US would halt all future assistance to South Africa, citing concerns over land expropriation without compensation. On Sunday, the US president called the alleged mistreatment of “certain classes of people” in South Africa a “bad situation that the radical left media doesn’t want to so much as mention.”
In response, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the country’s land reform policy, stating it is a “constitutionally mandated legal process” and that the government “has not confiscated any land.”
Last month, Ramaphosa enacted an expropriation bill into law, permitting the government to seize land without compensation when it deems such action “just and equitable and in the public interest.” The new law aims to address racial disparities in land ownership, a long-standing issue in Africa’s most advanced economy since Apartheid ended in 1994.
Mantashe stated that Africa is the richest mining region globally, holding at least 90% of the world’s chromium and platinum, 40% of its gold, and the largest reserves of cobalt, vanadium, manganese, and uranium.
