Trump’s ambush of South Africa’s president was disgraceful and deceitful

By Evan Vucci
The Philadelphia Tribune
https://www.phillytrib.com/

President Donald Trump meeting last week with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa was disgraceful.

Trump disgraced himself and showed no class toward his guest in the Oval Office of the White House.

After some opening pleasantries about golf, Trump attacked South Africa’s leader with baseless allegations that white farmers in his country were being systemically singled out for persecution and murder.

At one point, Trump had the lights dimmed and directed everyone’s attention to a misleading television video showing Black politicians, none part of Ramaphosa’s government or political party, using anti-apartheid chants about attacking white South Africans.

After the video, Trump gave the South African president a stack of papers that he said were printouts of reports about attacks on white farmers.

“Death. Death. Horrible death” Trump said.

These are not new allegations.

Supporters of the Trump administration — including South African billionaire businessman Elon Musk — have long made false claims that there is genocide against the white minority in South Africa.

In response, the Trump administration has welcomed dozens of Afrikaners to the U.S. as refugees, saying they face discrimination and violence at home.

Ramaphosa rejected allegations of genocide in South Africa and encouraged Trump to listen to other members of his delegation, including pro golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen and Johann Rupert, an Afrikaner and luxury goods tycoon who is South Africa’s richest person.

Trump talks about a fictional genocide against whites and ignores the real racial history of South Africa.

South Africa was ruled by a white minority known as Afrikaners. The system of racist oppression known as apartheid ended three decades ago, and some tension remains despite largely successful efforts at reconciliation.

Ramaphosa pointed out that crime is a problem in his country and the Blacks are the main victims and there are no targeted attacks against whites.

However, Trump did not want to be bothered with the facts and therefore made several false claims including during the White House confrontation:

The video played by Trump in the Oval Office showed rows of white crosses stretching off into the distance along a rural road. Trump claimed: “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”

“However, the crosses do not mark graves. The video is from a protest against the murder of white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were ambushed and shot dead on their premises in 2020,” reports the BBC.

“It’s not a burial site, but it was a memorial,” Rob Hoatson, one of the organizers of the event, told the BBC. He said the crosses were erected as a “temporary memorial” to the couple.

Trump said white farmers in South Africa are facing genocide.

The fact is South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. There were 26,232 murders last year, according to South African Police Service.

Of these, 44 were killings of people within the farming community and of those, eight were of farmers. These figures are not broken down by race in any public stats release that we’ve been able to locate — but they clearly don’t provide evidence for the claims of “white genocide” made repeatedly by Trump.

In February, a South African judge dismissed the idea of genocide as “clearly imagined” and “not real.”

During the White House meeting, Trump held up a series of articles which he claimed showed evidence of white farmer killings in South Africa.

“Look, here’s burial sites all over the place. These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump.

But the image isn’t from South Africa — it’s actually from a report about women being killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reports the BBC.

“The French news agency (AFP) initially pointed out the image, and BBC Verify ran a search and confirmed it as being from a Reuters news agency clip filmed in the DR Congo city of Goma in February.”

The Trump administration is at odds with South Africa on differing views on foreign policy including the Russia-Ukraine war, South Africa’s relationship with China and South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

In December 2023, South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the conflict with Hamas.

In response to disagreements with South Africa, the Trump administration has taken several actions against South Africa including cutting aid, expelling its ambassador and suspending trade agreements.

Ramaphosa was visiting the White House last week in hopes of reaching new agreements on trade. But Trump did not want a deal he wanted to humiliate the South African leader.

In his ambush and attempt to bully Ramaphosa, Trump embarrassed himself.