Washington DC — The Oval Office lights dimmed. A large TV flickered on. And suddenly, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa found himself watching a video of Julius Malema chanting “kill the Boer” — part of an anti-apartheid song — as Donald Trump leaned in to press his point.
“Death, death, death. Horrible death,” Trump said, referring to white farmers in South Africa. “That’s what’s happening.”
So began a highly charged meeting between the two presidents, with Trump reviving a long-debunked narrative of a white farmer genocide. It wasn’t your typical diplomatic sit-down. This was pure Trump showmanship, equal parts grievance and theater.
Trump, who has long pushed baseless claims of racial persecution in South Africa, arrived armed with videos, articles, and a dramatic sense of timing.
He had already signed an executive order slashing U.S. aid to South Africa and welcomed white South African farmers as refugees. And now, he was playing the hits again — this time directly to Ramaphosa’s face.
To say Ramaphosa looked baffled would be an understatement.
Trump’s narrative was centered on South Africa’s controversial land expropriation policies and violent farm attacks, which he framed as state-sanctioned, racially motivated murders of white Afrikaners.
Yet experts — and even South African police — have consistently said otherwise: crime is high, yes, but it’s indiscriminate. Farmers, both Black and white, are frequent victims of brutal attacks in rural areas. There is no evidence of genocide.
Still, Trump was undeterred. “When they take the land, they kill the white farmer,” he said again, even after Ramaphosa flatly rejected the accusations as false. “That is not government policy,” Ramaphosa replied. “We are completely, completely against what he was saying.”
But the President of the United States wasn’t buying it. He accused South Africa’s Black-led government of pursuing antiwhite policies and cozying up to what he called “bad actors” — namely Hamas and Iran.
And that wasn’t all. Trump also called out Ramaphosa for South Africa’s recent genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and his past role with MTN Group, a telecom firm with ties to Iran’s regime.
And then there was Elon Musk — South African-born and clearly aligned with Trump’s perspective.
Musk has repeatedly claimed South Africa’s affirmative action laws are discriminatory toward whites.
He’s also said Starlink can’t get licensed in South Africa because he’s not Black. South African regulators, for the record, say Starlink has never formally applied. But under existing equity laws, 30pc of local subsidiaries must be owned by Black South Africans — a holdover from post-apartheid restitution efforts.
Despite the intensity of the Oval Office clash, the meeting didn’t end in flames. Trump hosted Ramaphosa for lunch afterward, and both sides described the private talks as “constructive.”
Ramaphosa later told reporters he believed Trump’s head was full of “doubt and disbelief” but insisted the discussion had moved beyond the genocide narrative.
Yet make no mistake — the U.S.–South Africa relationship is now hanging by a thread.
