Latest news with #AfrikanerFarmers
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Donald Trump makes extraordinary immigration claim about Australia in tense Oval Office exchange
Donald Trump claimed Australia is being inundated with white Afrikaner farmers who are fleeing genocide in South Africa in a tense meeting with the country's President. The US President effectively accused South African leader Cyril Ramaphosa of overseeing state-sanctioned mass murder of the country's white ethnic minority in a heated Oval Office exchange. He claimed many Afrikaners were being killed and their land forcibly taken, prompting others to flee to the United States and Australia. 'You take a look at Australia, they're being inundated and we're being inundated with people that want to get out,' Trump said on Wednesday. 'Their farm is valueless and they just want to get out with their life. This is a very serious situation, but if we had a real press it would be exposed.' During the harangue, Trump made Ramaphosa watch a video which purportedly backed up his claim and also held up printouts of various newspaper articles as evidence. One of the clippings included a piece written by the Daily Mail's Sue Reid in February, which reported that 20,000 Afrikaners had inquired at the US Embassy in South Africa about becoming refugees. Trump's administration has so far admitted 59 white Afrikaner refugees from South Africa. Another of the clippings included two reports from Australia's dating from 2017 and 2018, and a television editorial by Sky News Australia's Rita Panahi, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. 'You're taking people's land away from them,' Trump told Ramaphosa. 'We have not,' Ramaphosa responded, adding that most of the murder victims in the country were black. Trump added: 'And those people in many cases are being executed. And they happen to be white, and most of them happen to be farmers. 'That's a tough situation, I don't know how you explain that. How do you explain that? 'We have thousands of people that want to come into our country. They're also going to Australia, in a smaller number.' 'They're white farmers and they feel like they're going to die.' While the encounter was tense and awkward at points, it did not descend into a full-scale shouting match like the infamous exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this year. Trump also branded an NBC reporter who had the temerity to ask why Trump was accepting refugees from South Africa and not Afghan and Venezuelan refugees a 'jerk'. 'Well, this is a group, NBC, that is truly fake news,' Trump replied. Trump then vented his fury on the veteran journalist when he asked about the Qatari plane being given to the pentagon for use as Air Force One. 'No. 1, you don't have what it takes to be a reporter, you're not smart enough,' Trump told the veteran reporter. 'For you to go onto a subject that - a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which was a very nice thing,' the president continued. 'You ought to go back to your studio at NBC.' He added: 'You are a disgrace, no more questions from you!' In 2018, Australia's then Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton said that persecuted white farmers in South Africa 'deserve special attention' as he proposed offering them special refugee visas. However, a surge of South Africans seeking refugee status were rejected in 2020 because government officials claimed the violence in the country is widespread, random and opportunistic, rather than targeted. 'The risk of murder and serious physical/sexual assaults is one faced by the population of the country generally and not by the applicants personally,' said one of the rejection letters, quoted in The Australian newspaper. There have been claims of a genocide against white Afrikaners since the end of apartheid in 1994. However, none of South Africa's political parties - including those that represent the white minority - have claimed there is state-sanctioned mass murder. While some white farmers have been killed by gangs, their prevalence has been overstated amid a welter of misinformation. South Africa has one of the world's highest murder rates, with an average of 72 a day, according to Reuters. There were 26,232 murders nationwide in 2024, of which 44 were linked to farming communities. Of those, eight of the victims were farmers. The overwhelming majority of murder victims in South Africa are black.
Al Bawaba
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Al Bawaba
Trump confronts South Africa's President with 'white genocide' video in oval office showdown
ALBAWABA- In a tense and unusual Oval Office meeting on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa with incendiary claims of 'white genocide' targeting Afrikaner farmers. According to multiple sources, Trump ordered the lights dimmed and played a video for Ramaphosa that included controversial footage of South African politician Julius Malema allegedly calling for violence against the country's white minority, as well as scenes of roadside memorials for murdered white farmers. Trump confronts South African president with white genocide claims in Oval Office meeting — New York Post (@nypost) May 21, 2025 Trump accused the South African government of enabling the expropriation and killing of white landowners, saying, 'They take your land and they kill you,' based on claims made by South African contacts. The confrontation occurred in front of several officials, including billionaire Elon Musk, a South Africa-born key adviser to Trump. Ramaphosa pushed back firmly, stating that the rhetoric in the video does not reflect official government policy: 'Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying.' Tensions between the U.S. and South Africa have grown in recent months, especially following South Africa's leading role in bringing a genocide case against Israel before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Some analysts view Trump's increasingly hostile posture toward Pretoria as retaliatory pressure over the ICC proceedings, accusing Washington of politically blackmailing South Africa for its stance on Israel. The episode echoes Trump's erratic and provocative behavior in other high-profile diplomatic meetings, including a previous encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where Trump's unfiltered diplomacy in front of cameras drew widespread criticism.
Washington Post
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Trump alleges 'genocide' in South Africa. At an agricultural fair, even Afrikaner farmers scoff
BOTHAVILLE, South Africa — Days before South Africa's president meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House this week, Afrikaner farmers at the center of an extraordinary new U.S. refugee policy roamed a memorial to farm attacks in their country's agricultural heartland, some touching the names of the dead — both Black and white.
