Trump to meet South Africa's Ramaphosa amid tension over white 'genocide' claims

The National

21-05-2025

US President Donald Trump is set to host South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday in a bid to repair strained relations that further deteriorated after claims of a white 'genocide' against white people in the African country. Mr Trump has alleged that the minority white community in South Africa is being persecuted and that their land is being seized. 'It's a genocide that's taking place,' the President said last week. 'It's a terrible thing that's taking place, and the farmers are being killed – they happen to be white.' The South African government has denied the claims of genocide. The US granted refugee status to 59 Afrikaners last week and they were given a ceremonial welcome at Washington-area Dulles airport. The move led to outrage and even ridicule in the US and around the world. Afrikaners are the descendants of the European colonisers mainly from the Netherlands who arrived in South Africa nearly 400 years ago. In 1948, the all-white government of South Africa established the apartheid system, which persisted until the 1990s. Apartheid laws instituted strict separation between the races and institutionalised discrimination, primarily against black South Africans. The legacies of that system still linger, experts say: despite making up only 7 per cent of the population, white people in South Africa still own the majority of land and are the highest earners. The genocide accusations stem in part from a law Mr Ramaphosa signed in January, the Expropriation Bill, which allows the government to confiscate land, in some instances without compensation, and redistribute it to marginalised groups. Before the admission of the Afrikaner refugees, relations were already strained between South Africa and the US. South Africa in late 2023 filed a case against US ally Israel at the International Court of Justice over its conduct of the war in Gaza, accusing Israel of committing genocide in the enclave. The US made the move to admit the Afrikaners despite Mr Trump issuing a series of executive orders and other actions in his first 100 days in office that have made it more difficult for many migrants to come to the US. His administration has also stripped protections for thousands of Afghans, Venezuelans and Haitians who had been allowed to temporarily live in the US. Mr Trump has made immigration a main focus of his second term. He won the election on a promise to impose hardline immigration policies mainly at the southern border. On his first day office, he suspended the asylum programme, a network of agencies and organisations that gave refuge to people from around the world fleeing violent conflicts, war and political persecution. He has argued that migrants and foreign workers are a threat to the US and take advantage of the country. The Trump administration has defended what now appears to be making Afrikaners an exception. 'Well, because it's a small subset, it's a new issue, and the President identified it as a problem and wanted to use it as an example,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday during testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Tuesday. 'If you look at all the persecuted people the world, it's millions of people – they can't all come here.' During the session, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen shouted at Mr Rubio, saying that claims that Afrikaners are victims of genocide are 'manufactured'. 'You tried to block the admission of individuals who had already been approved to come here as refugees, while making bogus claims to justify granting such status to Afrikaners,' he said. 'You've made a mockery of our country's refugee process, turning it into a system of global apartheid, where political ideology and race, more than truth or need matter.' Mr Ramaphosa and Mr Trump are also expected to discuss trade, after the US imposed a 30 per cent tariff on South Africa as part of the US President's sweeping levies last month. An additional 25 per cent tariff was placed on South African-made vehicles entering the US, putting vehicle surcharges at 55 per cent. Days after the tariffs were announced, Mr Trump put a 90-day pause in place to allow for negotiations. Trump adviser Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa to a wealthy white family, said in March that his Starlink service was not allowed to operate in South Africa because he was 'not black' – a reference to affirmative action laws in the country that aim to increase black South Africans' economic participation. Bloomberg reported that the South African President plans to offer Mr Musk a 'workaround' that would allow him to operate in the country.