South African advocacy group AfriForum on Thursday welcomed US President Donald Trump's contentious tweet on land reform and farm killings in South Africa and said it hoped pressure from Washington would make the government reconsider its plans on expropriation without compensation.

AfriForum spokesperson Kallie Kriel said Trump's call for US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to "investigate the illegal occupation of land and farms, expropriation as well as the widespread murder of farmers in South Africa" was good news for property owners and all other citizens. 

“Venezuela, with a poverty rate of 90 percent, and Zimbabwe, with an unemployment rate of 90 percent, are examples that prove that the disregard of property rights ruins a country’s economy to the detriment of everyone in the country. 

"Everyone in SA should therefore hope that the pressure from the USA will lead to the ANC reconsidering the disastrous route that they want to take SA on,” Kriel added.

Trump tweeted that he had instructed Pompeo to look into "farm and land seizures and large-scale killing of farmers" in South Africa.

His tweet followed a claim by Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson that the South African government had "started seizing land from his own citizens without compensation because they are the wrong skin colour".

Kriel recalled that in May the organisation had sent a delegation to the US to brief various organisations, including the Cato Institute and Fox News, on the South African government's plans to amend the constitution to enable land expropriation without compensation.

He added: "In the light of Trump’s instruction to the Secretary of State to investigate expropriation without compensation and farm murders, AfriForum is ready to provide additional information regarding the matter to the American government.

"AfriForum will intensify its campaign to inform the international community regarding the threat to property rights and farm murders in SA."

The department of international relations said on Thursday it would engage with the US embassy in Pretoria on the matter.