White Zimbabwean farmers seek Trump's help

White farmers in Zimbabwe, thousands of whom had their land seized in violent state-backed invasions beginning in 2000, are pinning their hopes on US President Donald Trump’s administration to help them win billions of dollars in compensation, reports Inside Politic. Mercury Public Affairs LLC, a US lobbying firm with ties to Trump, has agreed to make the farmers’ case to American politicians and won’t charge them, according to a previously unreported Foreign Agents Registration Act disclosure that was filed last month. Bryan Lanza, a partner at Mercury who is involved in the project, according to a letter included in the filing, previously served as a senior campaign adviser to Trump. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is a former Mercury co-chair. By turning to Mercury, the farmers are tapping into the US administration’s view that white people in southern Africa are being discriminated against by black-majority governments. Trump has repeatedly advanced a widely debunked claim that SA is allowing a genocide against white Afrikaner farmers and has offered them refugee status. The Zimbabwe Government, led by current President Emmerson Mnangagwa, agreed in 2020 to pay the farmers $3.5bn in compensation in a bid to reintegrate itself into the global economy, but has failed to make good on that pledge. The farmer’s plight has already garnered Republican support. Brian Mast, a Florida congressman and chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, in September, introduced legislation seeking to block Zimbabwe from securing new funding from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank until it paid the compensation. The Bill has been passed by the committee to the House, but is yet to advance further.