South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks to journalists through the eighth EU-South Africa summit in Cape City, South Africa, in March.
Nardus Engelbrecht/AP
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Nardus Engelbrecht/AP
JOHANNESBURG — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is ready to fulfill Donald Trump on the White Home right this moment, in an try and reset relations between the 2 international locations after the U.S. president’s steady assaults on his authorities.
The U.S. administration has repeatedly slammed Pretoria for what it falsely claims is the systematic persecution of white Afrikaner farmers — and the South African facet has repeatedly tried to right Washington.
To no avail. The checklist of the Trump administration’s grievances with South Africa are any diplomat’s nightmare. Trump lower assist to the nation in February, his prime officers have snubbed G20 occasions South Africa is internet hosting this yr and the U.S. expelled South Africa’s ambassador. The U.S. administration can be indignant that Pretoria — a agency Palestinian ally — has taken Israel to the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice within the Hague over its conflict in Gaza.
Many South Africans can be watching right this moment’s assembly anxiously, particularly after Trump’s televised hostility in direction of Ukrainian chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy within the Oval Workplace earlier this yr made headlines world wide.
Ramaphosa desires to make use of the assembly to set Trump straight concerning race relations in South Africa — Trump has repeated a rightwing conspiracy concept that there’s a “white genocide” taking place within the nation — and his authorities’s insurance policies.
Will Trump pay attention this time? Pretoria has to strive, as a result of a significant free commerce settlement hangs within the stability amid different financial considerations.
Nelson Mandela’s lead negotiator
Ramaphosa is a seasoned diplomat who performed a pivotal function as one of many lead negotiators within the talks that ended apartheid and led to the historic election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first Black president. Earlier this yr, the South African chief tried to allure Trump by providing his fellow avid-golfer a activate the inexperienced on the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.
Nevertheless, Ramaphosa wasn’t in a position to conceal his frustration after 59 white Afrikaans South Africans who had been granted refugee standing by the Trump administration arrived within the U.S. final week.
Ramaphosa stated on condition that there is no such thing as a persecution of the minority group, the Afrikaners who left for the U.S. had been merely white individuals who did not need to stay below Black majority rule.
“We’re the one nation on the continent the place the colonizers got here to remain and we’ve got by no means pushed them out of our nation,” he identified, after Trump repeated a right-wing conspiracy concept that there’s a “genocide” of whites taking place in South Africa.
Each Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have accused the federal government of doing “horrible issues” and expropriating white-owned land with out compensation — one thing that has not occurred.
On Tuesday, in an look in entrance of the Senate International Relations Committee, Rubio was grilled by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., on why Afrikaners had been granted refugee standing when Afghans, Uyghurs and others had been nonetheless banned from coming into the U.S.
Afrikaner refugees from South Africa arrive, Monday, Might 12, 2025, at Dulles Worldwide Airport in Dulles, Va.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
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Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Rubio repeated the administration’s unsubstantiated claims: “They stay in a rustic the place farms are taken and land is taken on a racial foundation.”
Elon Musk — the homegrown critic
Trump’s South African-born adviser Elon Musk has additionally been extremely crucial of South Africa’s authorities. He has slammed the nation’s affirmative motion legal guidelines, which he says forestall his Starlink satellite tv for pc firm from coming into the market. On Tuesday, stories advised that Ramaphosa would possibly provide the Tesla billionaire some form of deal forward of his White Home assembly.
In the meantime, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen, who’s white and is a part of the South African delegation, stated he could be specializing in “securing commerce relations…Preferential commerce agreements…contribute considerably to our economic system. Shedding these advantages could be disastrous.”
It is doable the South Africans will take a transactional tack on the assembly; the nation is wealthy in minerals like platinum and Washington would possibly see the profit in countering China’s pursuits within the nation.
A sanguine South African public
The upcoming Washington assembly has been dominating South African media, with native newspaper The Sunday Instances working a headline over the weekend studying “Into the Mouth of Trump Hell.” A sketch by acclaimed South African political cartoonist, Zapiro, confirmed a nervous-looking Ramaphosa heading into the “White Supremacy Home”.
On the streets of Johannesburg this week, NPR spoke to South Africans of all races who stated they wished Ramaphosa effectively.
“Completely no white genocide is going on,” stated 36-year-old white South African Jovana Korac. In reality, she stated, “the entire world is completely horrified by what’s taking place in America — from civil rights to girls’s rights.”
Requested what Ramaphosa ought to inform Trump, Siya Ralo, a 42-year-old Black barista, was blunt, saying: “to keep away from South African affairs.”
Requested if he is involved Ramaphosa may very well be given the identical therapy as Zelenskky, Ralo stated “I hope it does not occur and I do know that Ramaphposa is a good strategist and he is obtained spine. I imagine he’ll earn Trump’s respect.”
One other cafe-goer, Ernest Motsi, a 29-year-old designer, instructed NPR that Ramaphosa ought to strive “discover frequent floor” with Trump if he may, but when not “we’re a really resilient individuals, no matter backlash we’ll get from the U.S., we’ll survive.”
If all else fails, there’s at all times that spherical of golf.
