Fears of explosive encounter as Trump meets South Africa's Ramaphosa

RTÉ News​

21-05-2025

US President Donald Trump receives South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House today, for what some observers think could be the most explosive encounter since that notorious meeting with Ukraine's leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Ramaphosa comes to the US as the president in office of the G20 - a grouping of 19 large, globally significant countries alongside the EU and the African Union.
But President Trump is threatening to boycott the G20 summit in South Africa in November - a symptom of sharply deteriorating relations between the US and South Africa.
However, it is another group of countries - the BRICS - and South Africa's role in it that is one of the leading points of tension between the countries.
The others are Gaza and Israel, and the Trump administration's claims of a white genocide in South Africa.
It is this claim, which has been utterly rejected by the South African government, that saw the arrival of some 50 Afrikaners - white South Africans of Dutch heritage - into the United States last week.
At a time when the US has shut down refugee programmes for countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and sub-Saharan Africa, and is in the process of ending the protected status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans in the US, who now face deportation, the arrival of a small group of white South Africans as a new refugee group has raised eyebrows.
The Episcopal Church - the Anglican Church in North America - has said it will end its 40-year-old resettlement programme with the US government in protest at the preferential treatment of white Afrikaners.
The Anglican church in South Africa was once led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a leading opponent of apartheid, while the American church said its commitment to racial justice was a moral imperative, according to reporting by National Public Radio.
The policy the Episcopal Church is so outraged by started on 7 February, when President Trump signed an Executive Order directing that Afrikaners be treated as refugees fleeing from "government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation".
This claim was based on a 2024 expropriation law, which the Trump administration says is to be used to take land from white farmers and give it to black farmers.
The South African government says the act is a sort of compulsory purchase power, similar in scope to "eminent domain" in US law, which empowers federal and state governments to take ownership of pieces of land for projects deemed to be for the greater good, typically for infrastructure projects like roads, railways, dams and bridges.
The administration went further, claiming that the law was part of an attempt to drive the white population from South Africa, and the executive order granted fast track refugee status to Afrikaners who apply for asylum in the US.
It also cut off US government aid and investment to South Africa.
The administration says there are systematic attacks on white farmers in South Africa, part of a violent campaign to drive them from the land.
This is denied by the South African government and by Afrikaner farming bodies such as TLU SA, an Afrikaner agriculture union.
It says the problem is South Africa's notoriously high crime rate, and that all races are its victims.
According to police statistics cited by the Associated Press news agency, 12 murders happened on South African farms last year.
One of those killed was a farmer. The rest were farm workers, people staying on the farm and one security guard. They do not record the racial profile of the victims.
That is in the context of around 75 recorded killings every day in South Africa. The vast majority of the victims are black and poor.
Although the apartheid regime ended in 1994, white South Africans continue to enjoy higher average living standards than most South Africans.
White South Africans, who make up 7% of the population, own 72% of farm land, while black South Africans own just 15%. The South African government says there have been no forcible sales of land. Land transfers that have taken place have seen white farmers bought out at market prices.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vigorously defended the Trump administration's decision to admit white South Africans to the US after cutting off access for refugees from the rest of the world in a hearing in the US Senate foreign relations committee yesterday.
"I think that the United States has a right to allow people into this country and prioritise the allowance of who they want to allow to come in," Mr Rubio told Democratic Senator Tim Kaine.
"Even based on the colour of somebody's skin?" asked Senator Kaine, to which Mr Rubio replied, "you are the one that is talking about the colour of their skin. Not me."
"They thought that their farms were being burned down. I think that's a pretty good justification for wanting to come. They're afraid for their lives," Mr Rubio added.
Some have pointed to the influence of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who was born and raised in South Africa, in leading President Trump to his strongly held view on how Afrikaners are treated in post-apartheid South Africa.
Yesterday, the South African side let it be known that they will make an offer to allow Mr Musk's Starlink satellite-based internet service to operate in South Africa.
Mr Musk has said that Starlink is not allowed to operate in South Africa because he is white.
The country's post-apartheid economic laws generally require businesses operating in the country to be 30% black owned in order to develop a black business owning community after decades of apartheid.
The Trump administration has signalled that it may press Mr Ramaphosa to exclude US companies from the black ownership rules.
But it is far from the only friction point. The same executive order that granted Afrikaners special refugee rights also decried the South African government's stance on Gaza and Israel.
It particularly dislikes South Africa's case against Israel at the International Criminal Court, which accuses the Israeli government of war crimes in Gaza.
The February executive order says: "South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements."
It is not the only foreign policy row between them.
Dating back to the Biden administration, the US has been critical of South Africa for not condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It has also abstained in UN votes criticising Russia for attacking its neighbour.
South Africa has denied US claims that it has supplied weapons to Russia to use in its war on Ukraine. The country has also held joint military exercises with Russia and China, again earning its displeasure from the United States.
Then there is the BRICS group - originally comprising the countries that give us the acronym: Brazil, Russia, India and China. They have been joined by some other big regional players - Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and South Africa.
As a group they have sought to loosen their dependence on the US dollar in trade, leading to accusations from the Trump administration that the so-called "de-dollarisation" is an effort to weaken the dollar's international role.
To some, the grouping is an alternative to the G7, the big wealthy industrialised democracies - the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Italy, France, Germany and the "Eighth member", the EU.
To others, the BRICS are a somewhat incoherent group of countries with little in common apart from a dislike of the US and its dominant role in world affairs.
Now the US is led by a president that dislikes the BRICS, and is determined to snuff out anything that looks like a threat to the US dollar.
South Africa, as one of the weaker members of the BRICS, is an easy one to beat up on right at the start of the second Trump administration, and send early messages to the rest of the group.
President Ramaphosa has a difficult path to negotiate.
He told reporters in Washington on his arrival yesterday that he is looking forward to discussions with President Trump and that he would like to keep the US on board for the G20 summit later in the year.
Mr Rubio has already snubbed a G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa while President Trump is on track to boycott the summit itself. Can Mr Ramaphosa do anything to change his mind?
The other issue the South African leader is hoping for some relief on is tariffs. In particular the tariffs on automobile exports to the US.
The 25% car import tariff could hit South Africa hard.
The US is the third biggest export market for South African-made vehicles from companies including Ford, Toyota, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes.
Last year that trade was worth $1.8 billion (€1.5 billion) to South Africa.
It does have more durable exports such as gold, diamonds, platinum and iridium, and may offer a rare earths export deal to the US as well.
Mr Ramaphosa said trade and investment was what has brought him to the US today, playing into Mr Trump's well known desire to negotiate business deals.
"We want to come out with a trade and investment deal," Mr Ramaphosa said.
He also said he will explain South Africa's foreign policy positions, particularly on Israel and Ukraine, adding, "we are very rational when it comes to foreign policy discussions".