President Trump ambushed South African president Cyril Ramaphosa Wednesday with a protracted video he says helps unfounded claims of persecution towards minority whites who beforehand dominated beneath the racist apartheid system.
After beginning with a chummy chat about golf, Trump shocked Ramaphosa and his delegation by screening a video within the Oval Workplace that he claimed confirmed assaults on white South Africans and funerals of murdered white farmers.
“When you look at the videos: How could it get worse?” Trump declared. “They take your land and they kill you…We’re going to talk about it.”
“The majority of people who are killed in our country are Black,” responded Ramaphosa, invoking the legacy of freedom fighter Nelson Mandela as a voice of reconciliation.
“The farmers are white,” Trump retorted. “And they’re being killed in large numbers.”
“This is sort of the opposite of apartheid,” Trump claimed, calling the assaults proof of “genocide” towards whites.
(L-R) South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa, U.S. President Donald Trump and Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik communicate to journalists within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on Might 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos)
Ramaphosa pushed for the high-stakes assembly with Trump in an try and salvage ties with the USA, which have hit their lowest level because the finish of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994.
Elon Musk, the South African-born mogul who has spouted the unfounded claims of genocide towards the still-privileged white neighborhood, crashed the working lunch.
Ramaphosa countered with a few human props of his personal, together with Trump golf buddies Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, together with billionaire Johann Rupert.
“We’re proud South Africans and we want to … see our country flourish,” Els stated.
Elon Musk (2nd R) listens as a reporter asks U.S. President Donald Trump and South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa questions throughout a press availability within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on Might 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos)
South Africans and a few impartial analysts warned of the hazard of Ramaphosa strolling into an Oval Workplace ambush by the hands of Trump just like the one just lately endured by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
However Ramaphosa is a seasoned negotiator who appeared properly ready for the mercurial Trump and stored his cool throughout the typically tense assembly.
Except for the problem of white South Africans, whom Trump has welcomed to the U.S. as supposed refugees, Ramaphosa clearly needed to debate commerce.
US President Donald Trump palms papers to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa throughout a gathering within the Oval Workplace of the White Home in Washington, DC, on Might 21, 2025. (Photograph by JIM WATSON/AFP through Getty Photos)
South Africa is the most important and most industrialized economic system in Africa and exports vehicles, wine and fruit to the U.S. It additionally possesses huge mineral wealth, together with big deposits of gold, diamonds and particularly platinum.
Trump slapped what he known as reciprocal tariffs on South Africa together with the remainder of the world, however suspended them for 90 days as negotiations progress. Getting a greater deal is on the prime of Ramaphosa’s to-do checklist.
Trump additionally lower all U.S. help to South Africa.
The Trump administration has introduced a small group of white South Africans to the U.S. as refugees even because it turns away tens of millions of non-white asylum seekers from different nations.
Afrikaner refugees from South Africa, arrive Monday, Might 12, 2025, at Dulles Worldwide Airport in Dulles, Va. (AP Photograph/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
South African Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, a white opposition chief who joined a Ramaphosa-led coalition authorities, has stated no land was being seized from farmers and claims of genocide have been false.
He instructed Trump that almost all of white farmers wish to keep in South Africa and resolve racial points.
Initially Printed: Might 21, 2025 at 1:26 PM EDT
