Trump confronts Ramaphosa over farm murders in White House exchange

United States President Donald Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa

A meeting between United States President Donald Trump and President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday night South African time veered sharply off course when Trump abruptly turned the focus to farm attacks in South Africa, relegating trade discussions to the sidelines.

The live-broadcast, held at the White House and attended by members of Ramaphosa’s delegation, which included South African golf stars Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, as well as businessman Johann Rupert, opened with formalities and expressions of economic intent.

Ramaphosa told Trump he hoped to “reset” trade relations and “promote investments in both countries”.

“We have about 22 companies from South Africa invested in the United States, thus creating a number of jobs, and you have 600 companies invested in South Africa, some of them for hundreds of years.”

But the agenda shifted following a question from a journalist Trump identified as being from NBC, who pressed the president on why Afrikaners were being granted refugee status in the US when others around the world were in more dire need.

The question prompted Trump to pivot to the issue of farm murders.

Addressing the journalist’s question, Trump said: “We have had many tremendous complaints about Africa, about other countries too, saying there are a lot of bad things going on in Africa. That’s what we will be discussing today.

“If you say we don’t take [refugees from other countries], all you have to do is take a look at the southern border. We let 21 million people come through our border, unchecked, unvetted, from all over the world.”

Last week, the first group of 49 Afrikaners arrived in the US under Trump’s new refugee policy for them, which has since been opened to all South African minorities.

Ramaphosa at the time described those who left as “cowards” who would eventually return.

Trump continued: “We take from many locations, if we feel there is persecution or genocide going in. We have had many [applications from South Africa] and many are white farmers. It’s a very sad thing to see, but I hope we can have an explanation of that,” he added, turning to Ramaphosa, “because I know you don’t want that. Normally we have meetings and talk about trade. But that will certainly be a subject that comes up.”

Trump has repeatedly characterised South Africa’s land reform and racially skewed economic redress policies as persecution of white citizens, a narrative Ramaphosa’s government has labelled disinformation.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Trump asked for the lights to be dimmed and directed an aide to play a video montage featuring Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema chanting the anti-apartheid song “kill the boer, kill the farmer” at several rallies, speaking about “cutting the throat of whiteness”, saying “revolutionaries should never be afraid to kill” and stating that his party would occupy land, and didn’t need the consent of the president to do so.

The footage also included former president Jacob Zuma singing similar struggle songs referencing violence against farmers.

What followed was a conversation that oscillated between grim discussions of farm killings and the country’s broader violent crime levels affecting all races — mentioned by every South African delegate who spoke — punctuated by Trump’s intermittent asides about golf.

The US president, a keen golf enthusiast, shared lighthearted exchanges with Els and Goosen, offering bizarre respites from the otherwise tense discussion.

Ramaphosa had earlier given Trump a book weighing 14kg about South African golf courses, a gesture of goodwill that contrasted sharply with the tone the meeting would take.

Asked by a South African journalist what it would take for Trump to be convinced there was no white genocide in South Africa — something he has often claimed — Ramaphosa stepped in, saying he could answer the question.

“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of those who are his good friends, like those who are here … if there was an Afrikaner genocide, these three gentlemen [Els, Goosen and Rupert] wouldn’t be here, and nor would my minister of agriculture [Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen].

Responded Trump: “But Mr President, we have thousands of people talking about it, we have documentaries, we have news stories. And it has to be responded to.”

This was when the montage was played, which also included hundreds of white crosses erected along a South African roadside, homages to murdered farmers. “I have never seen anything like it,” said Trump.

Ramaphosa asked where the area was, “I have never seen it,” he said.

“It’s in South Africa,” said Trump.

US Vice-president JD Vance then handed Trump a wad of printed articles about farm killings. Trump leafed through the pages, saying “Death, death, death,” and passed them to Ramaphosa, who passed them to one of his delegates.

Asked by another South African journalist what he would like Ramaphosa to “do about the situation we have just seen on the screen”, Trump said: “I don’t know. White South Africans are fleeing because of violence and racist laws. If you look at the videos, how does it get worse?”

Ramaphosa responded by saying South Africa had a multi-party democracy in which citizens could express themselves “and in some cases, that doesn’t go along with government policy”. The EFF was a “small minority party that is allowed to exist,” he added.

“But you do allow them to take land,” said Trump, a reference to the recently inked Expropriation Act, which allows for the expropriation of land for public use with nil compensation, in some circumstances. “And when they do, they kill the white farmers, and nothing happens to them.”

The “fake news” in the US didn’t want to talk about farm killings, said Trump.

Responded Ramaphosa: “I would like us to talk about it very calmly, to sit down around a table and talk about it, including trade matters.” Because the US was a trade partner, continued Ramaphosa, “these are things we are willing to talk about”.

Asked by a journalist whether there were other punitive measures Trump would put in place for South Africa, he responded: “There are many bad things happening in many countries, but this is very bad, very very bad.”

Earlier this year, Trump’s administration cancelled dozens of US Agency for International Development projects in South Africa and elsewhere, expelled ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, and hit the country with tariffs — including a 30% surcharge on certain South African imports — before cutting them back to 10% pending negotiations.

Ramaphosa tried to turn the conversation to talk of restitution, with Trump saying, “but you are taking people’s land”.

“We are not,” started Ramaphosa.

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told him he had “never seen anything like it, the number of people who want to leave South Africa”.

Asked by a journalist whether he was afraid that if most farmers in South Africa were killed, there would be an economic collapse, Ramaphosa said: “I would like my minister of agriculture to answer that. He is white, he is from the opposition party, which has joined my party [the ANC, in a coalition government].”

Rural safety was indeed a problem in South Africa, said Steenhuisen. “And it requires a lot of effort to get on top of. It is going to require more policing resources, it is going to require a different strategy to deal with it, but certainly the majority of commercial and small-scale farmers want to stay and make it work.

“I have just come from [Nampo] the largest agricultural show in the Southern Hemisphere, and the majority of them want to stay. They, too, have a memorial to those who have died of farm attacks, and as the minister of agriculture, it is something that I am particularly [involved] in, making farm murders and stock theft a priority crime.

“And it affects all farmers in South Africa, stock theft in particular affects black farmers.”

He then took a swipe at Malema and Zuma —  who now leads the uMkhonto weSizwe party. “[They] are both leaders of opposition minority parties. The reason my party, the DA, chose to join hands with Mr Ramaphosa’s party, was precisely to keep those people out of power.

“We cannot have those people sitting in the union buildings making decisions. That is why after 30 years of us exchanging barbs across the floor [with the ANC], we have decided to join hands, precisely to keep that lot out. Because the day they get control of the Union Buildings or parliament, that is what you are going to see,” he said, gesturing to the television.

“And that is why this government, working together, needs the support of our allies, around the world, to grow our economy, and shut the door forever on that rabble.”

Asked by Trump whether he denounced the language used by Malema in the montage, Ramaphosa claimed: “Yes, as government, as my own party, we are completely opposed to that.” But Ramaphosa has never publicly condemned the singing of the song, even when pressured by Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum to publicly do so in March this year.

When Els was asked to speak, he said he was a proud South African, but “we want to see things get better in our country”. There was a lot of anger in South Africa, he said. It was “important” to have Trump’s support, he added.

Goosen told Trump about his mother and brothers being attacked on farms.

Trump then asked for Richemont chairman Rupert’s comments. South Africa’s richest man started by saying he was “the biggest target of that rabble rouser [Malema] for over 10 years.”

“We have too many deaths,” said Rupert, “and it’s not only white farmers, it’s across the board.”

He added that violent crime was most rampant in the Cape Flats area of the Western Cape, which Steenhuisen’s DA controls.

“We need technological help. We need Starlink at every little police station. We need drones,” Rupert said, adding that if the South African economy did not grow, its “culture of lawlessness and dependency” would increase.

“We need your help sir, and we need Elon’s technology,” Rupert added. Satellite internet service Starlink is owned by South African-born tech billionaire, and X and SpaceX owner, Elon Musk, who was in the room.

Cosatu president Zingiswa Losi was also part of the delegation, and told Trump about the excessive violence in the country. But prior to this, she spoke about the importance of growing the South African economy, saying “we need more foreign investment in our country”.

She also spoke of a handover of farms in KwaZulu-Natal by “white farmers”. “So there is no expropriation without compensation,” she said.

“There is no doubt that we are a violent nation, for a number of reasons. If you go into the rural areas, where the majority of black people live, you will see women, elderly women being raped, being murdered, and these are black elderly women, that are found with their throats slit, raped multiple times,” said Losi.

She asked for Trump’s help with technology to battle crime.

One of the final questions from a journalist was whether Trump still believed, after what he had heard, that there was white genocide in the country. “I haven’t made up my mind, I hate to say it…I am trying to save lives,” he responded.

By Des Erasmus and originally appeared in The Daily Maverick