A high-level meeting intended to thaw frosty relations between the United States and South Africa took an unexpected turn when President Donald Trump ambushed Cyril Ramaphosa, his South African counterpart, with a video supporting claims of a “white genocide” in the black-majority nation.
In a theatrical move, Trump ordered the lights dimmed as the video was on standby mode and played on screens in the Oval Office during Wednesday’s bilateral meeting.
The nearly five-minute video, later shared on the White House’s X account, was captioned, “Proof of Persecution in South Africa”.
Ramaphosa appeared visibly unsettled, his expression revealing confusion and discomfort, yet he maintained his composure throughout the encounter.
Claims of white genocide in South Africa, mostly made by the Trump administration, including South Africa-born Elon Musk, have been repeatedly debunked.
South Africa has also strongly rejected the claims.
At one point while the video was playing, Ramaphosa asked, “Have they told you where that is?”
Trump shook his head in the negative, and Ramaphosa went ahead to challenge the US president’s stance.
“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,” Ramaphosa said, referring to White members of his delegation.
Those on his entourage included John Steenhuisen, agriculture minister, and Retief Goosen and Ernie Els, prominent golfers.
“There is criminality in our country,” Ramaphosa added.
“People who do get killed, unfortunately through criminal activity, are not only White people; the majority of them are Black people.”
Both leaders also spoke about the disputed land policy in South Africa.
Ramaphosa defended the policy, noting that it was initiated to redistribute land due to inequalities in the country from the decades-long apartheid regime that ruled South Africa until 1994.
But Trump interjected, saying White South Africans were executed because of the law.
The policy was the bone of contention between both countries, leading to the US halting funding to South Africa.
Wednesday’s meeting marked Ramaphosa’s long-anticipated effort to mend strained ties with his US counterpart.
However, the South African president was unprepared for the meeting to mirror the tense atmosphere of a previous Oval Office encounter between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, held months earlier.
That meeting had ended in a heated exchange, culminating in Zelensky being escorted out.
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