JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s Government lashed out at President Donald Trump yesterday after he tweeted that his a dministration would be looking into alleged seizures of white-owned farms and the “large-scale killing of farmers” in the country, an assertion it said was false and “only seeks to divide our nation and remind us of our colonial past”.

South Africa is in the throes of a racially charged national debate over land reform, a lawful process that seeks to correct the legacy of decades of white minority rule that stripped blacks of their land. Today, nearly a quarter-century after the first democratic elections, black South Africans comprise 80 per cent of the population but own just four per cent of the country’s land, according to the Government.

Though the ruling African National Congress has pledged to close that gap, progress has been slow. In July, President Cyril Ramaphosa said his party would amend the constitution so the state could expropriate land without compensation to speed up the land reform process, but that has not yet happened and no land has been seized.

Trump’s tweet followed a segment on Fox News on Wednesday in which host Tucker Carlson claimed Ramaphosa had already started “seizing land from his own citizens without compensation because they are the wrong skin colour”, calling the alleged seizures “immoral”.

The Government said Trump’s tweet was based on “false information” and reflected a “narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.” It called a meeting with officials at the US Embassy as it sought to clarify Trump’s remarks.

Though no land seizures have occurred, the prospect has sent panic through some white farming communities who worry the policy will strip them of their land, cause land prices to plummet or make them the target of potentially violent land seizures.

For years a small but vocal group of white South Africans have claimed white farmers are the target of violent, racially motivated farm attacks.

Experts say the attacks reflect the country’s generally high crime rate and that there is no evidence connecting them to the victims’ race.

Farm murders have been declining since their peak in 2001, according to research by Agri SA, an umbrella group of South African agricultural associations. In 2016-17, there were 74 murders during farm attacks, according to Africa Check , compared to 19,000 murders across the country in the same period.

“People are not being targeted because of their race, but because they are vulnerable and isolated on the farms,” said Gareth Newham, head of the crime and justice programme at the Institute for Security Studies in the capital, Pretoria.

“There is no white genocide in South Africa,” Julius Malema, leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party, told reporters. “There is black genocide in the USA; black people are killed every day. There is a black genocide here in South Africa; just recently a farmer was convicted for the murder of a black farmer.”

Trump’s tweet did find some supporters.

AfriForum, a group that represents some white South African interests, welcomed his comments. In May, its leaders went to the US to lobby officials and institutions about Ramaphosa’s proposal to expropriate land and the alleged targeting of white farmers.