Pretoria, South Africa - The US has pulled out of a climate funding deal struck by rich nations to help their developing counterparts transition to clean energy, the program's first beneficiary South Africa and Indonesia said Thursday.

The so-called Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETP) are ambitious financing deals between a small group of wealthy countries and emerging economies to help them ditch planet-polluting coal.

Coal-rich but energy-starved South Africa was the first developing country to reach a deal on a JETP in 2021. Indonesia's partnership for more than $20 billion in financing to wean itself off coal was unveiled in late 2022.

But the US has withdrawn from its multi-million-dollar deal with Pretoria under President Donald Trump's climate crisis-denying administration, a unit in South Africa's presidency said in a statement.

"The Just Energy Transition Project Management Unit in the Presidency acknowledges the decision of the United States of America to withdraw from the Just Energy Transition Partnership with South Africa," it said.

"The South African government was formally informed of this decision by the US Embassy on 28 February 2025," the statement read, adding that Washington had cited executive orders by Trump in January and February.

Indonesia's JETP Secretariat head Paul Butarbutar confirmed the US embassy in Jakarta informed him Tuesday of Washington's decision to withdraw.

"Correct... it is part of the executive order," he told AFP when asked if the Trump administration had ordered the withdrawal.

Butarbutar said the pledge of $21.6 billion from private and public donors remained unchanged, but expected the US withdrawal to impact transition studies and the issuance of grants.

"My understanding... is the US will still collaborate with Indonesia for development of renewable energy and other forms of energy, as long as it is still in line with US interests," he said.

The US had pledged $56 million in grants to the South African initiative and an additional $1 billion in potential commercial investments.

Introduced during the UN climate talks in Scotland in 2021, the initiative's backers counted France, Germany, Britain, Canada, and the European Union.

South Africa alongside Senegal, Vietnam, and Indonesia were named as the first recipients of the support.

The US withdrawal leaves South Africa with $12.8 billion in pledges, Pretoria said, adding to its recent clashes with Washington.

Trump, whose far-right billionaire Elon Musk was born in South Africa, last month froze aid to the country over a law redressing apartheid injustices that he alleges, without evidence, would allow land to be seized from the white minority.