World leaders have a huge new problem: Trump's Oval Office smackdowns
It's the new Hunger Games of world politics — the televised Oval Office take-down by President Donald Trump.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was the latest leader to become a MAGA prop Wednesday, as Trump lectured him on false claims that White South African farmers are the victims of a genocide.
Foreign leaders now enter the hallowed lair of the US president — who runs press conferences like they're WWE cage matches — at their peril.
Trump's dressings-down are a metaphor for a US foreign policy that is erratic, politicized and awash in conspiracy theories. As Ukraine and Jordan also found out, the more vulnerable a country, the more hostile a reception they tend to get.
Giving the growing political risks of appearing in the Oval Office, it would not be surprising if some leaders reconsider what was once a coveted invitation but is now a political trap. This could have diplomatic consequences, with Global South nations like South Africa now looking more to China than the US.
Ramaphosa knew what was coming. He was joined by his White agriculture minister in the new multiracial coalition government. Trump's friends the South African major champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen were also drafted in.
But that didn't stop Trump dimming the lights and rolling out a multimedia show of right-wing propaganda about South Africa. 'Death, death, death,' he said, as he displayed articles about the killings of White Afrikaners.
The question of more equitable land ownership is one of the most complex legacies of South Africa's years of minority rule. But as Ramaphosa explained, there's no systematic attempt to wipe out a community based on race or ethnicity — the definition of genocide. And most victims of violent crime are Black.
Every Oval Office meeting now takes place in the haunting shadow of the brutal inquisition of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February.
Ramaphosa seemed to have learned from that shocker. While rattled, he reacted with bemusement rather than outright anger to the president's ambush. He patiently tried to explain the facts to Trump — not that it made any difference.
'They're being executed, and they happen to be White, and most of them happen to be farmers,' Trump said. 'I don't know how you explain that.'
With most presidents, Oval Office photo-ops are dull affairs. Press poolers are rushed in to hear each leader mouth platitudes about the strong relationship between the two countries. Sometimes reporters get to throw in a few questions before they are herded out to await a formal press conference later in the day.
This has changed in Trump's second term, which has shattered even those barriers of decorum that the president left in place in his first go around.
The Oval Office is now more crowded and rowdier.
Vance often sits on the White House sofa alongside Cabinet members waiting to pounce. This is an unusual role for the veep. During the Obama administration, then-Vice President Joe Biden often shunned the spotlight at the back of the room. Trump's visitors must run the gauntlet of the MAGA media pack looking, like the president, for viral moments. During Zelensky's visit, one such reporter asked the president, who wears a military-style field jacket to honor frontline troops, why he wasn't wearing a suit to show respect.
Many deep problems remain in South Africa since the end of apartheid and years of corrupt and chaotic leadership by the African National Congress after President Nelson Mandela stepped down. It's safe to say none of those issues were helped at all by Trump's antics. But that was clearly not the point. The president's Oval Office shows are about signaling to the MAGA base — apparently, in this case, its White nationalist elements.
Trump's brand is based on being an outsider and a disrupter. He returned to office determined to tear down global political and trading systems that boosted US power but that he says are ripping Americans off. What better way can there be to demonstrate 'America first' strongman credentials than berating foreigners on TV?
Sometimes, the spectacle seems to be for the benefit of one man — Elon Musk. The South African-born mogul was in the room with Ramaphosa on Wednesday after complaining on X about discrimination against Whites in South Africa.
Musk's views also got an airing during a visit to the Oval Office by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when Vance complained about what he said were free speech crackdowns in the UK on American-owned tech firms. Starmer, schooled by his weekly appearances at Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, made short work of the complaint. 'We've had free speech for a very, very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very, very long time.'
Trump's ritual humiliation of his visitors means world leaders now have a complex new dimension to their prep work.
They must consider how they will come across to their electorates back home. If they fail to stand up to Trump, they will look weak. If they push back hard, they might get a domestic boost — like Zelensky — but could damage their national interests if they leave Trump nursing a grudge.
And leaders must try to avoid being trapped on camera while Trump says or does something that underscores their relative weakness compared to the United States.
In February, for example, King Abdullah of Jordan looked deeply uncomfortable as Trump pressed him to accept refugees from Gaza. Such an influx could topple Jordan's fragile political balance and the monarchy itself. Yet Abdullah also knew his country depends on US aid for security, so he couldn't rebut his host.
Zelensky was another supplicant. After he was kicked out of the White House for reacting angrily to Vance's demands for gratitude, he spent weeks making amends.
The most successful Oval Office visitors are those who dole out praise for Trump without debasing themselves too much.
With a theatrical flourish, Starmer pulled out a letter from King Charles III inviting Trump for a state visit, and waxed on about how this was a great honor since Trump had already had a similar invite from the late Queen Elizabeth II. Starmer is not known as a natural politician, and he got top marks at home for his unusually deft performance.
French President Emmanuel Macron created the second-term playbook for correcting Trump's wild falsehoods when he laid his hand on the US president's wrist when he falsely claimed Europe would get back aid it has poured into Ukraine. 'No, to be frank, we paid. We paid 60% of the total effort,' Macron said.
Macron seemed to be relishing the high-wire political act of the Oval Office showdown. But he was careful to leaven his own statements with a large helping of 'Dear Donalds.'
Another leader vying to be the bridge between Europe and Trump is Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. As a right-wing populist who often visits Mar-a-Lago, Meloni had the advantage of being among friends.
But as a strong supporter of Ukraine, she was on sensitive ground that she smoothed with slick political skills. At one point, Meloni interrupted her own interpreter and assumed translation duties herself to make sure Trump fully understood a point about Italy increasing defense spending.
And she curried favor by adopting the Trumpian vernacular, telling the president that they could 'make the West great again.'
No foreign leader faced as much domestic pressure in the Oval Office as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. After all, he had just won an election that was dominated by hostility over Trump's demands to annex Canada by wrapping himself in the maple leaf flag.
Carney tried talking to Trump in terms the real estate-magnate-turned-president would understand. 'There are some places that are never for sale,' he said. 'Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign … it's not for sale, won't be for sale ever.'
When Trump said, 'Never say never.' Carney turned to the cameras and the True North and mouthed, 'Never, never.'
Trump, however, had the host's prerogative of the last word — another hazard for world leaders visiting the Oval Office. He went on a tirade about how unfair it was that the US bears much of the cost for defending Canada militarily, then told the press to leave. Carney couldn't get a word in edgewise.
Leaders never know quite what might happen with Trump.
Which brings us to Pope Leo XIV.
Vance was at the Vatican last weekend for the pontiff's inaugural mass and handed over an impressive white envelope bearing the presidential seal that contained an invitation for a visit to the White House. Leo was heard to say 'at some point' — perhaps referring to his intention to take up the offer.
But the former Robert Prevost of Chicago didn't seem to be in a rush. Maybe that's because it's almost inconceivable to envision the man viewed by Roman Catholics as God's representative on Earth willingly submitting to the Oval Office bear pit and Trump's somewhat secular rhetoric.
Any visit is likely to follow intense negotiations with the Vatican about protocol.
But the spectacle of the two most famous Americans on the planet in the storied office would be something to behold.
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