US President Donald Trump's tweet on land seizures

[Lance Hanse]

In this article from last August President Trump has taken to twitter and tweeted about a story produced by fox news. The news story detailed how white farmers were being killed and their land was being taken. Trump then tweeted that he asked the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, at the time to looking into the murders. The next day after the Tweet had circulated the South African government responded with complete denial and blamed trump for trying to "divide our nation and remind[s] us of our colonial past." This event was significant because as the tweet continued to be viewed in South Africa, the rand currency dropped more than 1.5% against the US dollar. ABC news reports that Trump was acting on misinformation. Readers of this article have to understand that misinformation and different perspectives on how things happen can cause significant consequences both politically and economically. Readers can see that this article was posted by ABC to first and foremost rebuke fox news and take a shot at Trump. This being said fox news is often times doing the same exact thing. In my opinion, instead of playing the political games, the mainstream media should lock down on their facts and report the truth how it is. In this case Trump may have been in the wrong because he was misinformed, but this is just a reoccurring problem and it effects countries all over the world. The article is posted below. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/trump-wants-pompeo-to-study-killing-of-farmers/10158114

[Pay Prostok]

Based on this article, it is clear how much global power the US has. Through just a series of tweets by President Trump the South African currency, rand, to drop more than 1.5% against the US dollar. The spread of misinformation is dangerous. I agree with Lance, in terms of the importance of transparency and focusing on the facts rather than political affiliation. Unfortunately, the true victims of this news story were the people of South Africa. The government of South Africa claimed this was an attempt to divide the nation. While the spread of misinformation is awful, it is better than the alternative which is censorship. 

[Emma R Wolfe]

This article is about President Trump's tweet regarding the apparent killing of white farmers in South Africa, a country that is deeply racially divided. Although Trump's tweet was misinformed and he most likely tweeted without doing any further research on the problem, it caused a drop in the value of South African currency and increased tensions between South Africa and the United States, with South Africa tweeting in response that they do not accept Trump's claims. I was shocked to read that something as casual as a tweet could lower the value of the currency of another country. This article illustrates how important it is to improve relations with African countries. This tweet of Trump's has offended South Africa and has only strained the relationship between these two countries more.

On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 5:02 PM Lance Hanse <lance...@gmail.com> wrote:

In this article from last August President Trump has taken to twitter and tweeted about a story produced by fox news. The news story detailed how white farmers were being killed and their land was being taken. Trump then tweeted that he asked the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, at the time to looking into the murders. The next day after the Tweet had circulated the South African government responded with complete denial and blamed trump for trying to "divide our nation and remind[s] us of our colonial past." This event was significant because as the tweet continued to be viewed in South Africa, the rand currency dropped more than 1.5% against the US dollar. ABC news reports that Trump was acting on misinformation. Readers of this article have to understand that misinformation and different perspectives on how things happen can cause significant consequences both politically and economically. Readers can see that this article was posted by ABC to first and foremost rebuke fox news and take a shot at Trump. This being said fox news is often times doing the same exact thing. In my opinion, instead of playing the political games, the mainstream media should lock down on their facts and report the truth how it is. In this case Trump may have been in the wrong because he was misinformed, but this is just a reoccurring problem and it effects countries all over the world. The article is posted below. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-19/trump-wants-pompeo-to-study-killing-of-farmers/10158114

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[Kaito Higashi]

The article talks about how President Trump asks the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to "closely study the South Africa land" to make sure white farmers were not being killed/getting their land taken away. People in South Africa were not happy about this incident. The South African Government tweeted, "South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past". This resulted in the currency dropping more than 1.5% against the U.S. dollar. President Trump acted on misinformation, which caused tension between him and the South African Government. This article shows that the President needs to be more careful about what he tweets and make sure this country's relationship with African countries do not get worse.

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 5:02:47 PM UTC-5, Lance Hanse wrote:

[Kaito Higashi]

This article shows President Trump's tweet to Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to "closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers". People in South Africa were not happy about this tweet. The South African government tweeted back, "South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past". This shows that the President needs to be more careful about his actions and comments on matters in African countries. This incident resulted in "The rand currency [dropping] more than 1.5 per cent against the US dollar in early trade on Thursday". As the leader of the United States, information must be confirmed before President Trump starts accusing other people.

Kaito Higashi

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[Ryan McGauley]

From this article I learned how South African government is currently following the plan of buying white-owned farms for redistribution to black people in order to reduce property ownership inequalities while not furthering racial divisions.  Research outside the article showed me that at the end of apartheid in 1994 about 85% of farmable land was owned by whites, but that same year whites only made up approximately 13% of South Africa’s total population. Instead of Trump’s statement that the “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers”, the more accurate reality is that the government is focusing on buying land from selling white farmers so the land can be redistributed more accurately to the higher percentage of the black South Africans living in the country.  There are still racial divisions and inequalities present in South Africa, but this promoting of inaccurate information by a foreign nation only serves to worsen these problems.

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 5:02:47 PM UTC-5, Lance Hanse wrote:

[Isaac Womack]

"Trump misinformed? Never!" seems to be the battlecry of many Americans, including major news network Fox News. Oftentimes Trump and Fox News cite each other (as seen in this case) creating a classic case of circular reasoning. Other than Trump being severely misinformed regarding the South African land issues amongst white farmers, the mere fact that Trump time and time again praises the extremely biased and majority (white) focused news network just goes to show how with the ease of access to information creates a culture of a lack of source checking amongst consumers of media (including Trump).

On Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 5:02:47 PM UTC-5, Lance Hanse wrote: