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Donald Trump attacked South African President Cyril Ramaphosa over his country’s alleged mistreatment of white farmers at a televised White House meeting on Wednesday in a scene with strong parallels to February’s Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“We have hundreds of people, thousands of people, trying to come into our country because they fear they’re going to be killed, and their land is going to be confiscated,” the US president told Ramaphosa.
“You do have laws that were passed that give you the right to confiscate land for no payment, you can take away land for no payment,” Trump went on.
The US president at one point took the unprecedented step of projecting videos on to screens on the wall of the Oval Office purporting to show the persecution of white farmers, and brandished a thick sheaf of media reports about alleged crimes against whites which he held up for TV cameras, with a startled Ramaphosa sitting by his side,
He also referred to burial sites where “over a thousand” white farmers killed violently had been buried, adding: “It’s a terrible sight — I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The South African leader said he wanted to know the location of the graves before insisting that “our constitution guarantees and protects the sanctity of tenure of land ownership”.
“And that constitution protects all South Africans,” he added.
Ramaphosa said he was willing to discuss the issue of alleged mistreatment of white farmers with Trump, but stressed that most victims of crime in South Africa were Black.
The episode had echoes of the extraordinary Oval Office showdown in February, when Zelenskyy was berated by Trump and vice-president JD Vance before the world’s media.
The object of Trump’s anger is a South African land reform law that seeks to redress the injustices of apartheid and has triggered a conspiracy theory on the American right that white people in South Africa face “genocide”.
The newly-enacted law allows the government to expropriate privately held land — the vast majority of which remains white-owned — for public use. No compensation has to be given in cases deemed by the courts to be “just and equitable”, although to date that has never been invoked.
Washington is also angry at the genocide case South Africa has spearheaded at the International Court of Justice against Israel over its actions in Gaza.
Since he took office in January, Trump has cut aid to the country, expelled its ambassador and threatened to boycott this year’s G20 summit, which Pretoria is hosting.
He has also offered asylum to a number of white Afrikaner families who claim to be the victim of racial discrimination.
Pretoria says the claim that the government is seizing land from white farmers and fuelling violence against white landowners is inaccurate and “fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history”.
In the run-up to the meeting in Washington, Ramaphosa prepared to offer concessions to the US such as allowing the country preferential access to mineral resources and gas deposits, and opening up South Africa’s markets to American agricultural companies.
Pretoria was also considering a compromise to allow South African-born Elon Musk, an outspoken critic of Ramaphosa’s government who was present in the Oval Office, to operate his Starlink satellite internet service in the country.
Wednesday’s meeting began cordially, with Trump describing Ramaphosa as a “truly respected man in many, many circles”, and the South African leader offering a “reset” of relations between the two countries.
Ramaphosa said he had brought Trump a present — a book “weighing 14kg” that showcased the golf courses of South Africa, while also apologising jokingly that he didn’t “have a plane to give you” in reference to Qatar’s offer of a $400mn jumbo jet to the US president.
The inclusion of Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, acclaimed South African golfers, in his entourage was also an attempt to curry favour with the famously golf loving US president.
But the tone quickly degenerated when Trump turned to the alleged violence against white farmers.
Ramaphosa kept his cool throughout the exchange, urging the white members of his delegation — including Els and John Steenhuisen, his agriculture minister, who is leader of the Democratic Alliance party — to address some of Trump’s wilder accusations.
“There were moments where you thought, oh, it’s about to become a screaming match,” said Khaya Sithole, a lecturer at the university of Witwatersrand and well-known South African commentator, “but Ramaphosa acquitted himself well in simply controlling himself”.
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