Reside updates: Trump ends Center East journey after floating new tariff phrases and Iran nuclear deal proposal

Whereas departing the United Arab Emirates earlier, President Donald Trump defended his administration’s choice to supply refugee standing to White South Africans who arrived in the US this week, claiming that the US should defend folks dealing with persecution, no matter race or background.

“I feel if I see folks in misery, I don’t care what colour, what they appear to be, what something their measurement, their peak, their eyes. I don’t care,” Trump instructed reporters aboard Air Power One on Friday. “However I feel that from all proof, the farmers in South Africa are being handled brutally.”

When pressed by a reporter on whether or not prioritizing White South African landowners whereas proscribing refugees from different world areas was honest, Trump insisted the transfer was pushed by humanitarian issues.

For context: In January, South Africa enacted the Expropriation Act, searching for to undo the legacy of apartheid, throughout which non-White South Africans have been forcibly dispossessed from their lands for the good thing about Whites. The regulation empowers South Africa’s authorities to take land and redistribute it — with no obligation to pay compensation, in some cases — if the seizure is discovered to be “simply and equitable and within the public curiosity.”

A flight carrying a bunch of 59 White South Africans granted refugee standing by the Trump administration landed in Washington, DC, on Monday, as reported by CNN. They’re the primary group to be accepted underneath this designation by the administration, with extra Afrikaner arrivals anticipated.

In the meantime, the US has positioned a broad suspension on most different refugee resettlement applications, together with these for people escaping struggle and famine.

The choice to permit solely White South Africans an exemption from the indefinite pause has sparked criticism from refugee advocates and the South African authorities alike.