President Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday with baseless claims about mass murders of white South Africans, prompting the former freedom fighter to offer polite pushback.
The claims of a genocide against white Afrikaner farmers in the majority-Black nation prompted the Trump administration to offer expedited refugee status and U.S. citizenship to the group this year, a stark contrast to its treatment of most foreigners seeking to enter the country.
Trump on Wednesday also showed Ramaphosa a nearly four-minute video that Afrikaner advocates say backs up their claims, though many of the clips were of Julius Malema, a populist figure ousted from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) years ago.
“It’s more than just a little movement — it’s a pretty big movement in South Africa,” Trump said of Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters, who have long advocated for a redistribution of land after decades of apartheid unfairly benefited Afrikaners economically.
Trump highlighted violent language used by Malema during political rallies and suggested Ramaphosa should have him arrested.
“Their land is being confiscated and, in many cases, they’re being killed,” Trump said.
“Look, these are articles over the last few days. Death of people,” he continued, as he flipped through printed pages of news articles. “Death. Death … white South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and racist laws.”
Ramaphosa lightly pushed back on Trump’s claims, suggesting that Melema’s opinions were protected speech, and that criminality, while a problem in the country, was not disproportionally impacting white farmers.
“Our government policy is completely, completely against what you were saying, even in the Parliament,” he said. “They’re a small minority party which is allowed to exist, in terms of our constitution.”
Controversial push to right past wrongs
Afrikaners are a white, predominantly Dutch ethnic group and make up less than 7 percent of South Africa’s total population. They ruled the country from 1948 to 1994, when Nelson Mandela led the ANC to power.
Ramaphosa was a top deputy to Mandela until becoming a successful businessman and trade union leader; he returned to government with his election as president in 2018.
South Africa’s Parliament passed a law in January aimed at rectifying “the results of past racial discriminatory laws or practices,” including apartheid and European colonialism. It’s currently being challenged in court, and no land has been seized under it to date.
But that hasn’t stopped opponents of the effort, such as Elon Musk, who was in the Oval Office for Wednesday’s meeting, from warning that wealthy white people are under mortal threat. The billionaire has blasted the land law on social media and said his company Starlink can’t operate in his home country because of the Black Economic Empowerment rules.
Bloomberg reported Tuesday that South Africa’s government plans to offer Musk a workaround of the Black-ownership requirements to allow the internet provider to operate in the country.
Violence on farms and claims of genocide
The United Nations recognized “genocide” as a crime under international law in the 1940s, following the Holocaust. According to the U.N., the phrase refers to killings and threats made “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The South Africa situation has not been recognized as such by any legal body, and there’s scant evidence of the current government’s policies contributing to acts of political violence toward any particular group.
According to South African crime statistics, there were 6,032 murders across the country in 2024. Forty-four of them, less than 1 percent, were on farms, and only one farmer was murdered. The stats aren’t broken down by race.
The White House video also showed footage of more than 1,000 crosses erected along a South African roadway, which Trump referred to as “burial sites,” saying each one represented a white farmer who was murdered.
The Witkruis Monument is not a cemetery but was built as a memorial to victims of farm attacks in South Africa. Crosses have been added since 2004. Historically, attacks on farms have targeted both Black and white owners.
Musk had previously shared a video of the crosses on his social media platform X, sharing the comments of an original post that falsely claimed the crosses were all memorializing white farmers.
“It’s horrible,” Trump said Wednesday. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The narrative around Afrikaner farmers also fits with the broader grievances of Trump and Vice President Vance, who often characterize efforts to address past racist policies, such as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in America, as unfair attacks on white people.
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