High voltage interview in the oval study between Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa. The two leaders collided on the violence against AfrikanerSouth African white farmers, who accuse the government of ‘genocide’ and are supported by the Washington administration.
The South African president, a former Nelson Mandela negotiator at the time of apartheid, arrived at the White House with the aim of convincing the American president to make agreements with his country. THEIn stake is high for South Africa: the United States are the second commercial partner and the cutting of the aid decided by Trump in response to the controversial law on the lands is already putting his economy in crisis. In January, in fact, Ramaphosa signed a controversial measure that allows the government to expropria private land;; without providing compensation when considered in the public interest. The goal, claims the law, is to face the consequences of apartheid e correct the balance that sees a minority of whites, 7% of the population, hold the three quarters of farms. For Trump and his administration, however, it is a “racist” measureand this is why on February 7 signed an executive order to cut all American funding in South Africa and he expelled the South African ambassador.
To try to soften The Donald, the South African has even brought Golf Ernie Els and retief goosen to the White House. But apart from the initial jokes about the sport preferred by the American president, the bilateral immediately entered the heart when Trump asked his counterpart for an explanation on “bad things that are happening in Africa”.
“We welcomed people who felt persecuted,” the Commander-in-Chief underwent to refer to the group of 49 white farmers who arrived in Washington in recent days with the status of refugees. From there it was A crescendo, damned only by the fact that in the end Ramaphosa, skilled mediator, decided not to replicate the accusations of the American president anymore, at least in front of the media and live streaming.
“There is no need for me to say the genocide of the Afrikaner, just listen to his South African friends here,” said the South African leader. In response, the Tycoon showed him and all the oval study a long documentary that denounces the killings and violence suffered by South African white farmers. “These things happened in South Africa,” Trump insisted, also showing dozens of pages of articles and photos of injured or bloody Afrikaner. “Their lands are expropriated, they are killed and the government does nothing,” he attacked the tycoon. President Ramaphosa tried to replicate that the acts of violence are the work of “a minority of extremists” and that that “is not the government line”, but in the face of the tycoon request to explain why the “criminals” have not been arrested could not do anything but keep silent.
On other fronts, the conversation between the two leaders to the White House took place in a more peaceful way, with Ramaphosa that expressed the “full support” to what the USA are doing for peace in Ukraine. No mention, however, in the Middle East, another potential terrain of clash: in December 2023, South Africa started, in fact, a procedure at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of Genocide in Gaza.