WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump hosted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday and immediately ambushed him about the alleged “genocide” being committed against white farmers in the majority Black country.
Ramaphosa told reporters on Tuesday that the purpose of his visit was to discuss trade relations between countries, but Trump seemingly had other plans.
“We do have a lot of a lot of people are very concerned with regard to South Africa, and that’s really the purpose of the meeting, and we’ll see how that turns out. But we have many people that feel they’re being persecuted,” Trump said in the Oval Office surrounded by reporters.
Ramaphosa disputed Trump’s claims and urged Trump to listen to the White members of his delegation who attended the meeting with him.
“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,” he said.
Trump responded to their disagreement by playing a nearly 5-minute video of the alleged genocide and stating, “We have thousands of stories talking about it. We have documentaries, we have news stories.”
The White House later shared the video on its X account with the caption, “Proof of Prosecution in South Africa.”
Trump followed the video by handing Ramaphosa a stack of articles claiming white genocide.
Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, was seen standing behind a couch during the meeting but did not speak up during the confrontation.
However, Musk has been among the voices in Trump’s administration accusing the South African government of violent attacks against white Afrikaner farmers.
“Elon is from South Africa. I don’t want to get Elon involved. That’s all I have to do, get him into another thing. But Elon happens to be from South Africa. This is what Elon wanted, he actually came here on a different subject, sending rockets to Mars,” Trump said.
Throughout the meeting, Ramaphosa tried to steer the conversation back toward economics since the United States is the country’s second-largest trading partner.
“Our main, real reason for being here is to foster trade and investment,” Ramaphosa said. “So that we are able to grow our economy with your support, and so that we are also able to address all these societal problems, because criminality thrives when people are unemployed, when there’s no other hope to eke out a living.”
The U.S. welcomed 49 white South Africans as refugees last week as part of what Trump called a larger relocation plan for minority Afrikaner farmers who are being persecuted because of their race.
In February, Trump accused South Africa of “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”
“A massive Human Rights VIOLATION is happening, for all to see,” he wrote on Truth Social. “The United States won’t stand for it – We will act. Also, because of this, I will be cutting off all aid to South Africa until further notice!”
Days later, he issued an executive order cutting off all assistance to the country.
“We all know as South Africans, both Black and white, that there’s no genocide here,” Ramaphosa reiterated last week. “We are not genocidal. We are not committing any act of hatred, act of retribution or violence against anyone.”
