Trump Shows South African President Videos Promoting False 'White Genocide' Claims in a Heated Talk
Tensions flared at the White House as President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa clashed over unfounded claims of “white genocide” in South Africa, with billionaire Elon Musk present.
The official meeting between US President Donald Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa at the White House moved from what was meant to be an official diplomatic meeting to a fracas. This was over allegations of racial persecution in South Africa. Trump repeated claims made by billionaire Elon Musk that there is a genocide of white Afrikaners, which both Ramaphosa and officials in South Africa deny.
In the Oval Office discussion, Trump showed videos purported to support his position and Ramaphosa was forced to respond by stating that these views do not reflect official state policy and by stating South Africa is a democracy. The controversy raises obvious complications for US-South Africa relations.
Trump confronts South African President for “White genocide” in the White House
What began as a friendly meeting between President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was quickly derailed after a reporter asked Trump about the U.S. decision to grant refugee status to white South Africans.
Trump reiterated his false assertion that white South Africans were victims of genocide, an allegation that Ramaphosa and the South African government categorically denied.
The brief meeting in the Oval Office is the latest in a long series of tense exchanges between the U.S. and South Africa stemming from several controversies involving the decisions made by Trump and South African-born billionaire Elon Musk. Both men have claimed that racial persecution is being committed against white Afrikaners, and in response, the U.S. accepted 59 white South African refugees, while rejecting others.
Musk has gone even further by repeatedly asserting a white genocide, an assertion that Trump repeated while in conversation with Ramaphosa.
When pressed by reporters, Trump played a series of videos which demonstrated clips presenting alleged threats and violence against white individuals living in South Africa. Ramaphosa followed up Trump's claim by explaining that these statements to “do not represent government policy”, and also stated that those making claims in the videos are member of minority political alternatives outside the ruling party coalition.
Ramaphosa added that South African democracy represented a valid democratic option which entail multipolitical views and also denounced the language used in the video's as unacceptable.
“We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,” he said.
Trump and Musk believes Afrikaners are victims of “genocide”
Both Trump and Musk have alleged that the people who had settled in South Africa from the Netherlands and France, the Afrikaners, have encountered a “genocide”, notwithstanding, there is no evidence supporting it.
The Governor's office accepted 59 white South Africans in the last week as refugees because they claimed they were escaping violence and discrimination. Leaders in South Africa have strongly rejected the genocide claims.
"We all know as South Africans, both Black and white, there is no genocide here,” Ramaphosa said last week in a clip on X. “We don't have genocide. We are not committing any act of hatred, act of revenge or violence against anyone.”
The leaders' meeting in the Oval Office started off with Trump explaining that Ramaphosa was “a little bit less respected,” by some people.
“He's a man who is, certainly, in some circles, really respected,” Trump said about Ramaphosa. “Other circles, a little bit less respected, like all of us, in all fairness.”
Ramaphosa laughed. “We're all like that.”
The Associated Press, based on police data, reported there were 12 murder cases on farms; one of the victims was a farmer. The victims were identified as farmworkers and did not have a race identified. The AP quoted, "About three quarters of all land owned privately in South Africa belongs to white farmers," according to government statistics.
