President Donald Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday by playing him a video that he claimed proved genocide is being committed against white people, driving farmers to flee to the United States.<\/p>\n
The unexpected stunt turned the usually staid diplomatic setting of the Oval Office into a stage for Trump\u2019s contention that white South Africans are being persecuted.<\/p>\n
With the media standing by and Ramaphosa at times unable to get a word in, Trump had staff put the video on a large screen, saying it showed black South Africans discussing genocide.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re white farmers, and they\u2019re fleeing South Africa, and it\u2019s a very sad thing to see. But I hope we can have an explanation of that, because I know you don\u2019t want that,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa repeatedly tried to speak but was drowned out. At one point, he pleaded that they \u201ctalk about it very calmly\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were taught by Nelson Mandela that whenever there are problems, people need to sit down around the table and talk about them. And this is precisely what we would also like to talk about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The visit by the South African leader was billed as a chance to smoothen relations following vociferous \u2014 and unfounded \u2014 genocide claims by Trump and his billionaire, South African-born ally Elon Musk, who was also in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are essentially here to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa,\u201d Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n
He arrived at the White House with two of South Africa\u2019s top golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and the country\u2019s wealthiest man, Johann Rupert, in a bid to woo the golf-loving US president.<\/p>\n
The support of the three high-profile Afrikaners in Ramaphosa\u2019s delegation comes days after around 50 Afrikaners arrived in the United States to take up Trump\u2019s offer of \u201crefuge\u201d. Trump made the offer despite the United States having halted arrivals of asylum seekers from most of the rest of the world as he cracks down on migration.<\/p>\n
The South African president was also expected to come bearing gifts, with reports that his government would offer Musk a deal to operate his Starlink satellite internet network in the country.<\/p>\n
The Tesla and Space X boss has accused Pretoria of \u201copenly racist\u201d laws, a reference to post-apartheid black empowerment policies seen as a hurdle to the licencing of Starlink.<\/p>\n
Land law row
\nTrump\u2019s administration has torn into a series of policies in South Africa since the US president began his second term in office.<\/p>\n
It has slammed South Africa\u2019s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice, cut foreign aid, announced 31 per cent tariffs, and expelled Pretoria\u2019s ambassador after he criticised Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.<\/p>\n
But the biggest issue for Trump and his team has been a South African land expropriation law signed in January that aims to redress the historical inequalities of white minority rule.<\/p>\n
Musk, who has spearheaded Trump\u2019s radical cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), attacked the land laws at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are there racist laws in South Africa?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Land ownership is a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people despite being only 7.3pc of the population.<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa has rejected Washington\u2019s assertion that the law will be used to arbitrarily confiscate white-owned land.<\/p>\n
Right-wing Afrikaner lobby groups have claimed that Afrikaans farmers are being murdered in targeted killings, but authorities say this is unfounded.<\/p>\n
Most of the victims of South Africa\u2019s sky-high murder rate are young black men in urban areas, according to police figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Donald Trump ambushed South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday by playing him a video that he claimed proved genocide is being committed against white people, driving farmers to flee to the United States. The unexpected stunt turned the usually staid diplomatic setting of the Oval Office into a stage for Trump\u2019s contention that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9357,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9355\/revisions\/9357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}