US President, Donald Trump’s claims of “White Genocide” in South Africa have overshadowed Oval Office talks with President Cyril Ramaphosa.
This came shortly after the South African President arrived at the White House.
Ties between both nations have been fraught since Trump froze aid to South Africa in February over claims it was mistreating its minority White population.
Trump has accused South Africa of seizing land from white farmers and of fuelling violence against white landowners with “hateful rhetoric and government actions,” an accusation he repeated in the Oval Office.
Pretoria says these claims are inaccurate and “fail to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history,” meaning its long history of domination by white colonialists, enshrined in the apartheid system.
In March, the US expelled South Africa’s Ambassador.
Last week, Trump expedited refugee status for 59 White South Africans, claiming that South Africa is persecuting its White minority.
South Africa, which has pushed back strongly against claims of persecution, in turn fears that it could lose its commercial ties with the US, its second-largest trading partner.
Speaking at the Oval Office, Trump said that he hoped to receive an “explanation” from South Africa’s President of his country’s approach to racial equity laws that Trump has false claimed amount to “genocide” of Whites.
“We do have a lot of a lot of people are very concerned with regard to South Africa, and that’s really the purpose of the meeting, and we’ll see how that turns out. But we have many people that feel they’re being persecuted.”
Donald Trump
Explaining why he allowed dozens of White Afrikaners to enter the US as refugees, Trump stated that he would allow entry to refugees “if we feel there’s persecution or genocide going on.”
Ramaphosa sat in uncomfortable silence while Trump had his aides play a short documentary featuring a medley of videos.
After the nearly 5-minute video, Ramaphosa asked, “Have they told you where that is?”
Trump shook his head no. “I’d like to know where that is, because this, I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa Challenges Trump’s Claims Of “White Genocide” In South Africa
South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa disputed President Donald Trump’s claim that White South Africans are suffering “genocide” in the country during their meeting in the Oval Office.
Referring to White members of his delegation, which included South African golfers, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els, and his country’s Agriculture Minister, John Henry Steenhuisen, Ramaphosa averred, “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture, he would not be with me.”
Ramaphosa urged Trump to “[listen] to their stories, to their perspective.”
Additionally, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his country’s land expropriation policy after criticism from President Donald Trump during their Oval Office meeting.
Starting to explain that his government aims to redistribute land due to iniquities in the country from the decades-long apartheid regime that ruled South Africa until 1994, Ramaphosa said, “Our constitution guarantees and protects the sanctity of tenure of land ownership, and that constitution protects all South Africans with regard to land ownership.”
Ramaphosa continued, “Your government also has the right to expropriate land for public use,” before the US President interrupted him.
Trump said, “You’re taking people’s land away from them.” “We have not,” Ramaphosa responded.
Earlier, Ramaphosa said that he came to Washington, DC, to “reset” the relationship between his country and the United States.
He added that he would like to advance trade with the US.
South Africa holds the G20 presidency until November, when it will hand over the role to the United States
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