Like Zelenskyy, Trump Ambushes S’African President in White House Meeting

•Accuses him of killing whites, taking their land

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Reminiscent of a recent heated encounter with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the US President, Donald Trump, yesterday ambushed South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, during a White House meeting accusing him of a “genocide” of white people in the African country.

The US president, who was hosting Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, said the footage showed the graves of more than a thousand white farmers. “It’s a terrible sight… I’ve never seen anything like it. Those people are all killed,” Trump said.

The lights were later dimmed in the Oval Office as the videos of the alleged killings were shown, including of South African officials allegedly calling for violence against white farmers, a Sky News report said.

But later, as he left after around three hours at the White House, Ramaphosa insisted his meeting with Trump went “very well”. The White House’s official account on X posted the footage that was shown in the Oval Office, saying it was “proof of persecution in South Africa”.

South Africa has rejected the allegation that white people are disproportionately targeted by crime. The clips included one of a communist politician playing a controversial anti-apartheid song that includes lyrics about killing a farmer.

Trump accused South Africa of failing to address the killing of white farmers. “People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” the US president said. “Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed,” he added.

The US president then displayed printed copies of news articles that he said showed white South Africans who had been killed, saying “death, death” as he flipped through them. He added in one article: “Here’s burial sites all over the place, these are all white farmers that are being buried.”

But Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’s accusations, by responding: “What you saw, the speeches that were being made, that is not government policy. We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves, 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 (a person in the video montage) was saying, even in the parliament. And they are a small minority party which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution.”

As the yells of anguish and violent rhetoric echoed in the Oval Office, President Ramaphosa craned his neck with a stern expression to watch the “evidence” of a repeatedly disproven “white genocide” in his country.

He interjected only to question the location of the videos – to which Mr Trump replied, almost with a “duh” tone of voice, “South Africa” – and then pushed on to direct his team to verify them.

That was the singular point of outright defiance from South Africa’s leader in an uncomfortable meeting where facts were dismissed as a difference in opinion and outdated videos were played as breaking news, the Sky News report added.

For the rest of the meeting, Nelson Mandela’s former chief negotiator kept calm and played the charm offensive – appealing to Trump’s ego at every sharp turn while maintaining that black South Africans are disproportionately impacted by the country’s harrowing murder rate.

The charm and calm may seem like dull knives in this sword fight but are necessary for peacekeeping in a meeting where £6 billion in trade hangs in the balance. South Africa has the most to lose in the deteriorating bilateral relations, the report said.

In just five months, the Trump administration has cut off vital humanitarian aid, including HIV assistance of which South Africa is the biggest beneficiary; expelled South Africa’s ambassador; and offered white South Africans refugee status as millions of black Africans suffer across the continent.

The South African leader said there was crime in his country, and the majority of victims were black. But Trump cut him off and said: “The farmers are not black.” The South African president responded: “These are concerns we are willing to talk to you about.”