US president confronts South African chief with declare of Afrikaners ‘persecuted’

US President Donald Trump confronted his South African counterpart on the White Home on Wednesday with a video Trump mentioned supported his declare that white farmers have been being “persecuted” within the nation.

The footage, performed throughout a information convention with Cyril Ramaphosa, confirmed 1000’s of crosses lining a street that Trump claimed marked burial spots for murdered white farmers.

Trump mentioned he didn’t know the place in South Africa it was filmed, and the footage has not been verified by the BBC.

Ramaphosa – who appeared to weigh his response fastidiously – disputed Trump’s allegation. He mentioned black individuals have been way more more likely to be victims of violence in South Africa than white individuals.

Trump additionally mentioned that he would search an “rationalization” from his visitor on claims of white “genocide” in South Africa, which have been broadly discredited.

Ramaphosa got here to the White Home on Wednesday for commerce talks to reset US-South African relations. He hoped to allure Trump with the inclusion of two of South Africa’s best-known golfers within the delegation. Ramaphosa additionally got here geared up with a present of an enormous e-book that includes his nation’s golf programs.

However after a cordial begin, the temper within the Oval Workplace shifted as Trump requested for the lighting to be lowered for a video.

The movie featured the voice of main South African opposition determine Julius Malema singing: “Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer”. It then confirmed a discipline of crosses, which the US president, speaking over the photographs, mentioned was a burial website of white farmers. The crosses really have been a part of a protest, not graves, over farmers who’ve been killed.

Trump additionally handed Ramaphosa what seemed to be print-outs of tales of white individuals being attacked in South Africa.

“What you noticed – the speeches that have been made… that isn’t authorities coverage,” Ramaphosa mentioned, responding to the video. “We now have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that permits individuals to specific themselves.

“Our authorities coverage is totally in opposition to what he [Malema] was saying even within the parliament and they’re a small minority social gathering, which is allowed to exist based on our structure.”

Referring to the crosses within the video, Trump later mentioned, “The farmers usually are not black. I do not say that is good or unhealthy, however the farmers usually are not black…”

Claims of genocide in South Africa have circulated amongst right-wing teams for years. In February, a South African decide dismissed the claims as “clearly imagined” and “not actual”, when ruling in an inheritance case involving a donation to white supremacist group.

Ramaphosa mentioned Wednesday that he hoped Trump would hearken to the voices of South Africans on this problem. He identified the white members of his delegation, together with golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa’s richest man Johann Rupert.

“If there was a genocide, these three gents wouldn’t be right here,” Ramaphosa mentioned.

Trump interrupted: “However you do enable them to take land, after which after they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and after they kill the white farmer nothing occurs to them.”

“No,” Ramaphosa responded.

The US chief appeared to be referencing that Malema and his social gathering, who isn’t a part of the federal government, have the ability to confiscate land from white farmers, which they don’t.

He additionally appeared to say a controversial regulation signed by Ramaphosa earlier this 12 months, which permits the federal government to grab privately-owned land with out compensation in some circumstances. The South African authorities says no land has but been seized below the act.

Chatting with Trump on Wednesday, Ramaphosa did acknowledge that there was “criminality in our nation… individuals who do get killed by prison exercise usually are not solely white individuals, nearly all of them are black individuals”.

South Africa doesn’t launch race-based crime figures, however the newest figures present that almost 10,000 individuals have been murdered within the nation between October and December 2024. Of those, a dozen have been killed in farm assaults and of the 12, one was a farmer, whereas 5 have been farm dwellers and 4 have been staff, who’re more likely to have been black.

As Trump pressed the problem, Ramaphosa stayed calm – and tried to work his allure by making a joke about providing a airplane to the US.

He invoked the identify of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, saying South Africa remained dedicated to racial reconciliation.

When a journalist requested what would occur if white farmers left South Africa, Ramaphosa deflected the query to his white agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, who mentioned that the majority farmers needed to remain.

However Trump saved firing salvoes at Ramaphosa, who averted getting into right into a shouting match with him – one thing that occurred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he met Trump in the identical room in February.

Earlier this month, a bunch of 59 white South Africans arrived within the US, the place they have been granted refugee standing. Ramaphosa mentioned on the time they have been “cowards”.

Earlier than Wednesday’s White Home assembly, South Africa’s chief had confused that bettering commerce relations with the US was his precedence.

South African exports into the US face a 30% tariff as soon as a pause on Trump’s new import taxes ends in July.

After the confrontation, Malema mocked the assembly, describing it as “a bunch of older males meet in Washington to gossip about me.”

“No important quantity of intelligence proof has been produced about white genocide. We won’t conform to compromise our political ideas on land expropriation with out compensation for political expediency,” he posted on X.

Tensions between South Africa and the US ramped up days after Trump took workplace for his second time period in January.

It was at that time that Ramaphosa signed into regulation the controversial invoice that permits South Africa’s authorities to expropriate privately-owned land in instances when it’s deemed “equitable and within the public curiosity”.

The transfer solely served to tarnish the picture of Africa’s largest economic system within the eyes of the Trump administration – already angered by its genocide case in opposition to Israel on the Worldwide Court docket of Justice.

In February, the US president introduced the suspension of crucial assist to South Africa and provided to permit members of the Afrikaner group – who’re largely white descendants of early Dutch and French settlers – to settle within the US as refugees.

South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, was additionally expelled in March after accusing Trump of “mobilising a supremacism” and attempting to “mission white victimhood as a canine whistle”.

Extra reporting by Khanyisile Ngcobo and Farouk Chothia