President Donald Trump and White House officials were accused of engaging in political theater after clashing with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a Wednesday Oval Office meeting over what he has repeatedly called a “genocide” against white South African farmers.
Trump displayed printed articles about the alleged deaths of white farmers and had his White House aides play a nearly 5-minute-long video of members of the South African Parliament calling for Black South Africans to reclaim land and, in some instances, the death of white Afrikaners.
“White South Africans are fleeing because of the violence and racist laws,” said Trump, whose administration established a refugee program for white South African farmers last week.
Ramaphosa refuted claims of a genocide against white Afrikaners and told Trump that the officials expressing their opinions and views in the video did not equate to government policy. “We have a multi-party democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,” he explained.
When asked by a reporter what he wanted the African nation to do about the alleged genocide against white farmers, Trump said, “I don’t know.”
A South African law allowing the government to seize private and unused farmland when deemed in the public’s interest is at the heart of the issue. As a result of decades-long apartheid in South Africa that segregated and disenfranchised Black South Africans, white farmers own more than 70% of the land despite making up only about 7% of the population. Activists have called for land reform or redistribution; however, the South African government has repeatedly said that no land has been seized.
Critics of President Trump say his use of TV cameras to prop up video and print visuals to amplify his claims about the treatment of white Afrikaners highlights his broader political white grievance agenda that is steeped in white supremacy, both domestically and internationally.
“In a global context, Trump is seeking to fully normalize white exceptionalism and white grievance, which necessitates sullying and then destroying the beauty of Black resistance and Black excellence, which are like kryptonite in the face of a radicalized version of whiteness,” Joseph Tolton, a Pan-African activist and founder of Interconnected Justice, told theGrio.
He continued, “As a master racist, he knows well that Black resistance and Black excellence must be fully eviscerated in order to realize Trump’s global vision of the unbridled rule of ‘whiteness.’”
South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool said as much of Trump when he accused his administration of having a “supremacist instinct” and argued that the president’s MAGA movement was the result of a declining white majority. Shortly after his remarks, Trump expelled Rasool from the United States.
After Trump’s Oval Office spectacle, CNN international correspondent Larry Madowo said of the meeting: “This was a good day for white nationalists in South Africa.” Madowo explained that the “talking points” of Trump mirrored those of AfriForum, a white Afrikaner lobby group identified as a white nationalist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He added, “They’ve gotten the best possible validation they could have imagined.”
Since returning to the White House, Trump has focused much of his domestic policies on cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI. His executive orders and public statements have been a departure from the administration of President Joe Biden, who sought to redress historical and systemic racism impacting Blacks and Hispanics in employment, housing, health care, and environmentalism. Instead, Trump has eliminated such programs and opened up investigations against institutions and individuals suspected of discriminating against white Americans.
Opponents say Trump’s foreign policies related to immigration, and now his refugee program for white Afrikaners, are only extensions of his anti-Black agenda in the United States.
“Thus far, Trump has been most strategic in laying the foundation to resegregate America and to recolonize Africa by disorganizing the wisdom of Black consciousness and Black self-understanding. These are the pillars that nurture and sustain the full political liberation and economic redemption of Black people globally,” said Tolton, who leads the Affirming Leaders Council, a group of pro-LGBTQ+ religious leaders working to address global racism and homophobia with a Pan-African response.
He continued, “The attacks on Mayor Ras Baraka, Congresswoman LaMonica McIver, and President Ramaphosa are all tactics which flow from the same strategy of anti-Blackness.”
