U.S. President Donald Trump used a White House meeting to forcefully confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing the country of failing to address Trump’s baseless claim of widespread and targeted killing of white farmers.
Trump even dimmed the lights of the Oval Office to play a video of a far-left politician chanting a song that includes the lyrics “kill the farmer.” He also leafed through news articles to underscore his point, saying the country’s white farmers have faced “death, death, death, horrible death.”
Trump had already cut all U.S. assistance to South Africa and welcomed several dozen white South African farmers to the U.S. as refugees as he pressed the case that a “genocide” is underway in the country.
The U.S. president has launched a series of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, claiming it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy.
Experts in South Africa say there is no evidence of whites being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate.
“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” Trump said. “Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed.”
Fact-checking Trump
Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’s accusation. The South African leader had sought to use the meeting to set the record straight and salvage his country’s relationship with the United States. The bilateral relationship is at its lowest point since South Africa enforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.
“We are completely opposed to that,” Ramaphosa said of the behaviour alleged by Trump in their exchange. He added, “that is not government policy” and “our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying.”
Trump was unmoved.
“When they take the land, they kill the white farmer,” he said.
“The president is a truly respected man in many, many circles,” Trump said of the South African president at the start of the Oval Office meeting. “And in some circles, he’s considered a little controversial.”
Ramaphosa said it was time to “recalibrate” the relationship, and went out of his way to thank Trump for welcoming him to the White House for the talks.
“We are essentially here to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa,” he said.
Trump issued an executive order in February cutting all funding to South Africa over some of its domestic and foreign policies. The order criticized the South African government on multiple fronts, saying it is pursuing anti-white policies at home and supporting “bad actors” in the world, like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.
Criticism driven by misinformation: South Africa
Trump has falsely accused the South African government of a rights violation against white Afrikaner farmers by seizing their land through a new expropriation law. No land has been seized and the South African government has pushed back, saying U.S. criticism is driven by misinformation.
The Trump administration’s references to the Afrikaner people — who are descendants of Dutch and other European settlers — have also elevated previous claims made by Trump’s South African-born adviser Elon Musk and some conservative U.S. commentators that the South African government is allowing attacks on white farmers in what amounts to a genocide.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said Trump remains ready to “reset” relations with South Africa, but noted that the administration’s concerns about South African policies cut even deeper than the concerns about white farmers.
South Africa has angered the Trump White House over its move to bring charges at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Ramaphosa has also faced scrutiny in Washington for his past connections to MTN Group, Iran’s second-largest telecom provider. It owns nearly half of Irancell, a joint venture linked with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ramaphosa served as board chair of MTN from 2002 to 2013.
“When one country is consistently unaligned with the United States on issue after issue after issue after issue, now you become — you have to make conclusions about it,” Rubio told Senate Foreign Relation Committee members at a Tuesday hearing.
Delegation included famous golfers
Given these deep differences, Ramaphosa appeared to be taking steps to avoid the sort of contentious engagement that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy experienced during his late-February Oval Office visit, when the Ukrainian leader found himself being berated by Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. That disastrous meeting ended with White House officials asking Zelenskyy and his delegation to leave the White House grounds.
The South African president’s delegation includes golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, a gesture to the golf-obsessed U.S. president. Luxury goods tycoon and Afrikaner Johann Rupert was also included as part of the delegation to help ease Trump’s concerns about land being seized from white farmers.
Musk also attended Wednesday’s talks. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been at the forefront of the criticism of his homeland, casting its affirmative action laws as racist against whites.
Musk has said on social media that his Starlink satellite internet service isn’t able to get a licence to operate in South Africa because he is not Black.
The Current11:01Why Trump has South Africa in his sights
U.S. President Donald Trump seems preoccupied with South Africa. He’s offered asylum to white farmers who say they’re facing racial discrimination there, is skipping the G20 in Johannesburg and has restricted all aid to the country. The Globe and Mail’s Africa Correspondent Geoffrey York explains why Trump has South Africa in his sights — and how much it has to do with Elon Musk.
South African authorities say Starlink hasn’t formally applied. It can, but it would be bound by affirmative action laws in the communications sector that require foreign companies to allow 30 per cent of their South African subsidiaries to be owned by shareholders who are Black or from other racial groups disadvantaged under apartheid.
The South African government says its long-standing affirmative action laws are a cornerstone of its efforts to right the injustices of the white minority rule of apartheid, which denied opportunities to Blacks and other racial groups.
