Trump confronts South African president over killing of white farmers

WASHINGTON (AP):

President Donald Trump used a White House meeting to confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing his country of failing to address the killing of white farmers.

“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” said Trump, who at one point dimmed the lights in the Oval Office to play a video of a communist politician playing a controversial anti-apartheid song that includes lyrics about killing a farmer. “Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed.”

Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’s accusation. The South African leader had sought to use the meeting to set the record straight and salvage his country’s relationship with the United States. The bilateral relationship is at its lowest point since South Africa enforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.

“We are completely opposed to that,” Ramaphosa said of the behaviour alleged by Trump in their exchange. Experts in South Africa say there is no evidence of whites being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate.

“We are essentially here to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa,” he said.

Trump has cut all U.S. assistance to South Africa and welcomed several dozen white South African farmers to the U.S. as refugees.

He has launched a series of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, including that it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy.

Trump issued an executive order in February cutting all funding to South Africa over some of its domestic and foreign policies. The order criticised the South African government on multiple fronts, saying it is pursuing anti-white policies at home and supporting “bad actors” in the world like the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran.

With the deep differences, Ramaphosa appeared to be taking steps to avoid the sort of contentious engagement that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy experienced during his late February Oval Office visit, when the Ukrainian leader found himself being berated by Trump and Vice President JD Vance. That disastrous meeting with White House officials asking Zelenskyy and his delegation to leave the White House grounds.

The South African president’s delegation includes golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen in his delegation, a gesture to the golf obsessed U.S. president. Luxury goods tycoon and Afrikaner Johann Rupert was also included as part of the delegation to help ease Trump’s concerns about land being seized from white farmers.

Musk also attended Wednesday’s talks.

Musk has been at the forefront of the criticism of his homeland, casting its affirmative action laws as racist against whites.

Musk has said on social media that his Starlink satellite internet service isn’t able to get a licence to operate in South Africa because he is not black.

South African authorities say Starlink hasn’t formally applied. It can, but it would be bound by affirmative action laws in the communications sector that require foreign companies to allow 30 per cent of their South African subsidiaries to be owned by shareholders who are black or from other racial groups disadvantaged under apartheid.