STORY: U.S. President Donald Trump's offer to take in white South Africans as refugees fleeing persecution may not spur quite the rush he anticipated.

An executive order he signed on Friday provided for resettlement in the U.S. of "Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination" as refugees.

Afrikaners are mostly white South African descendants of Dutch and French settlers, some tracing back their roots in the country to the 17th Century.

But it's not clear that they want to flee the place they've called home for hundreds of years.

"Why would you want to go? There hasn't been any really bad... taking over our land. The people are carrying on like normal and, you know, what are you going to do over there?

That was the response from Neville van der Merwe, a white 78-year-old pensioner living near [in?] Cape Town.

And he had this to say about Trump cutting off aid to his country.

"We all know how Mr Trump behaves, you know? So, why should they do that? Is he being spiteful?"

Trump is pushing back against a law signed last month by President Cyril Ramaphosa aimed at addressing the country's unequal land ownership.

Whites make up less than a tenth of the country's population.

But a legacy of the racist Apartheid government left three quarters of privately-owned land in the hands of the white minority, after 3.5 million Black people were forced from their homes.

The new law makes it easier for the state to expropriate land for what it says is the public interest.

"And we will not be bullied..."

Ramaphosa's governing African National Congress or ANC has defended the measure, and accused Trump of amplifying misinformation propagated by AfriForum, an Afrikaner-led group.

And even that group, which lobbied Trump's previous administration on their cause, said it was not taking up his offer.

"We have to state, categorically, we don't want to move elsewhere."

That's AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel speaking on Saturday.

Alongside Kriel was Flip Buys, who chairs the Solidarity trade union, a group that says it represents 600,000 Afrikaner families.

"We may disagree with the ANC, but we love the country. As in any community, there are individuals who wish to emigrate, but the repatriation of Afrikaners as refugees is not a solution for us. We want to build a future in South Africa."

Some said they appreciated Trump's gesture.

Werner van Niekerk is a carpenter in Bothasig.

"I think it's a very nice gesture from Donald Trump to offer us asylum over there."

He did not say whether he planned to take up the offer.