Pretoria will ask the US ambassador for clarity on a tweet sent out by US President Donald Trump in which he announced that he has asked the US secretary of state to study expropriation without compensation and farm murders after seemingly watching a segment on Fox News.

Trump tweeted that he has asked his secretary of state‚ Mike Pompeo to "closely study the South African land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers".

Trump also included the sentence "South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers" in the sentence‚ and tagged Fox News host Tucker Carlson and the channel in his tweet.

The presidency said on Thursday that it noted Trump’s tweet‚ "which is misinformed in our view"‚ but that the matter would be taken up through diplomatic channels.

“To this end the Presidency will request the minister of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) to obtain clarification from the US Ambassador‚” Khusela Diko‚ Ramaphosa’s spokeswoman‚ said.

Lindiwe Sisulu is the current Dirco minister.

The segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight broadcast was titled “Inside South Africa's racist land seizures”‚ in which Carlson stated as fact that the Constitution had already been amended‚ and ridiculed the US state department’s statement on the process in SA.

Trump's tweet also comes after US think-tank the Cato Institute published an editorial calling on his administration to act against SA‚ possibly by removing it from the Agoa trade deal‚ which allows favourable South African exports to the US.

An editorial on the topic was written on the think-tank's web site by Marian Tupy‚ who was the expert interviewed by Carlson on the segment.

Ernst Roets and Kallie Kriel‚ leaders of Lobby group AfriForum‚ reportedly visited Carlson’s studio earlier this year in their tour to the US where it raised among others the issue of farm murders. Huffington Post also reported then that Roets and Kriel had met with the Cato Institute during the visit to the US.