President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa about claims of a white genocide by showing video footage in the Oval Office of alleged burial sites of white farmers.
“Turn the lights down and just put this on,” Trump said as he directed Ramaphosa to watch a video montage of political rallies with widespread chants of “kill the farmer!” and images of grave sites.
“These are burial sites right here. … Over a thousand of white farmers,” Trump pointed out to the president, who had denied claims of genocide and said murder and crime are not unique to white farmers.
During the video presentation, Ramaphosa was looking elsewhere for most of it, with one member of the South African delegation visibly confused and furrowing his brow. According to the White House, the idea for the Oval Office movie moment came from Trump, the former reality TV star-turned-politician.
Following the video’s conclusion, Trump went on to show printouts of news articles on persecution as Ramaphosa urged a calm dialogue on the subject.
“What you saw, the speeches that were being made, one that is not government policy,” Ramaphosa told Trump of those calling for killings. “We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves [and] political parties to adhere to various policies. And in many cases, or in some cases, those policies do not go along with government policy.”
“Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying, even in the parliament. And they are a small minority-party which is allowed to exist in terms of our Constitution,” he said.
Since his inauguration, Trump has severely cut foreign aid to South Africa, expelled its ambassador to the United States, and previewed the possibility of not attending the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg this November.
Trump has criticized South Africa for what he claims is the systematic persecution of minority white Afrikaner farmers, going so far as to provide some with a chartered flight to Washington and refugee status last week as he seeks to deport illegal immigrants, some to third countries.
Trump and his supporters have long backed Afrikaners, descendants of the colonists who created the apartheid system that Ramaphosa worked alongside former South African President Nelson Mandela to break down.
But that support has recently escalated after Pretoria passed a new law permitting the government to expropriate land without compensation in some circumstances. South Africa has also sided against Israel by leading the case against the Jewish state at the United Nations’s International Court of Justice, alleging it is committing genocide in Gaza, as well as aligning with China and Russia as part of the BRICS’s intergovernmental organization that is seeking to undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency.
Joining the Oval Office meeting was Elon Musk, a South African by birth, who frequently uses his social media platform X to amplify his complaints about his home country.
Trump was pressed by reporters Wednesday to address his decision to extend refugee status to Afrikaners, even while stripping asylum protections for migrants from other countries in South America and the Middle East.
“When you say we don’t take others, all you have to do is take a look at the southern border. We let 21 million people come through our border, totally unchecked, totally unvetted,” the president said in response to a question on the topic. “We do have a lot of people who are very concerned with regard to South Africa, and that’s really the purpose of the meeting, and we’ll see how that turns out. But we have many people who feel they’re being persecuted, and they’re coming to the United States.”
“Generally, they’re white farmers, and they’re fleeing South Africa, and it’s a very sad thing to see, but I hope we can have an explanation of that, because I know you don’t want that,” Trump added to Ramaphosa.
Later during the meeting, a reporter asked Trump what Ramaphosa must do for him to “be convinced that there’s no white genocide in Africa.”
“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those who are here when we have talks between us,” Ramaphosa quickly cut in. “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture. He would not be with me. So it will take him, President Trump, listening to their stories, to their perspective. That is the answer to your question.”
Later, after Trump berated a reporter for asking about the plane the Qatari government is gifting the Trump administration, Ramaphosa joked that he was “sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.”
“I wish you did,” Trump added, earning chuckles from the room.
Trump, however, could not be deterred, repeating that the South African government was allowing black South Africans to seize farm land owned by white South Africans and then kill them without facing criminal penalties.
“This is sort of the opposite of apartheid. What’s happening now is never reported. Nobody knows about it. All we know is we’re being inundated with people, with reports about white farmers from South Africa, and it’s a big problem,” Trump declared.
“It’s a pretty big movement in South Africa, so it has to be resolved,” Trump added. “It’ll be the end of the country.”
Prior to the exchange, the meeting featured a much more civil tone.
Ramaphosa didn’t come empty-handed, looking to follow similar visits by world leaders who had successfully wooed Trump with a variety of gifts. In addition to adding golf legends Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and luxury goods magnate Johann Rupert to his delegation, the South African president gifted Trump a book showcasing South Africa’s golf courses.
“When we spoke about golf, you said I should start practicing, and I’ve started practicing, so I’m ready,” he added with a laugh.
Trump and Ramaphosa had been scheduled to meet over a private lunch, with no press in attendance, before hosting a bilateral meeting in which reporters could ask questions. Still, Trump and Ramaphosa headed directly into the Oval Office after the latter’s arrival for the bilateral meeting.
“The visit is high-stakes diplomacy for South Africa but a risk worth taking on the chance that Ramaphosa can reset the relationship with the U.S.,” Brookings Institution nonresident senior fellow Witney Schneidman told the Washington Examiner. “The risk is that the meeting devolves into a Zelensky-style shouting match over Trump’s — mistaken — view that Afrikaners are victims of genocide. Trump could also focus on S.A.’s support for Hamas, leading the genocide case against Israel at the ICJ and Iran.”
Ramaphosa had also hoped to make inroads with Trump’s transactional side, with trade and tariffs on the agenda. South Africa is the largest economy on the continent and could prove a key partner alongside the U.S. to undercut China’s influence in Africa.
Schneidman, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, described how Ramaphosa would be offering a deal that will include liquefied natural gas opportunities in the hope that he can remove the 25% trade tariffs that have been imposed on automobiles exported from South Africa to the U.S.
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“He is also hopeful that the U.S. will agree to begin negotiating a more comprehensive trade package with S.A.,” he said. “With Trump indicating that he wants to host African leaders at a Summit in the U.S. in September-October, I suspect he will find a way to achieve a workable dialogue with the leader of one of Africa’s most important countries.”
