US President Donald Trump threatened a few days ago to cut off future funding to South Africa based on allegations of embezzlement and confiscation of land belonging to white people.

Meanwhile, in response to this accusation, Cyril Ramaphosa, the President of South Africa, denied Trump's accusations on Monday and made himself available to explain in detail how the land expropriation law in force in the country works.

"We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration on our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest. We are certain that from these engagements we will share a better and common understanding on these issues," said Ramaphosa, in a text published on his social network.

Other South African leaders, informed by the decision, also commented on Trump's threat to withdraw his support for South Africa.

The Minister of Minerals and Petroleum Resources, Gwede Mantashe, said during an event on Monday that his country and other African countries should begin to disassociate themselves from dependence on the US.

"And I said, let's demobilize Africa. We're going to retain minerals for the US. If they don't give us money, we don't give them minerals. But the reality is that they take our minerals, but say we're withdrawing funding. No, we have minerals on the continent. So my call is for Africa to be the richest mining jurisdiction in the world.

And this is an issue that we must internalize as a continent. Use it to our advantage. It's one of the things we can use to compete in the world. We can't be the poorest continent," said Gwede Mantashe.

The leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters and member of the South African National Assembly, Julius Malema, also criticized Trump's statement, calling it offensive.

"Donald Trump's statement is offensive and undermines our sovereignty and is a reminder that our dependence on foreign aid and foreign direct investment surrenders us to the will of the imperialists who use money to dictate the economic and political course of Africa. We want to make it categorically clear to the US President that we will expropriate land without compensation and take legislative measures to do so and no threat will stop us," he said.

Trump's criticism seems to be related to the new Expropriation Act, signed by Ramaphosa last month. The legislation provides that, in certain circumstances, the government can pay "zero compensation" for land expropriated for public interest purposes.