Could 22, 2025
The assembly got here weeks after the U.S. admitted white South African refugees – whereas delivery refugees of different ethnicities out.
Issues took a well-known mistaken flip as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa sat calmly whereas President Donald Trump pushed false claims of “white genocide” throughout an Oval Workplace assembly, NBC Information reported.
Ramaphosa stored his cool whereas calling Trump out on the U.S. determination to confess solely white South Africans as refugees whereas pushing in opposition to immigrants from different international locations. The forty seventh president baselessly pushed a story of genocide in opposition to white folks in South Africa, which Ramaphosa and different South African leaders have denied. Ramaphosa took the time to calmly faculty Trump on individuals who might have been killed, and the way they don’t seem to be solely white. “The individuals who do get killed, sadly via criminality, should not solely white folks,” he mentioned.
Trump’s claims have been supported by DOGE director and Tesla founder Elon Musk, whose emotions in regards to the nation’s racial fairness legal guidelines resulted within the U.S. admitting white South African refugees — whereas delivery refugees of different ethnicities out.
Musk was current for the assembly, together with Vice President JD Vance, and different members of the Trump cupboard. Collectively, Trump and the X proprietor pressured Ramaphosa and different South African leaders and reporters current to observe a montage of clips, together with movies of individuals allegedly discussing “slicing the throat” and taking pictures white folks.
Whereas Ramaphosa denounced the language heard within the clips, saying it’s “not authorities coverage,” the nation’s minister of agriculture mentioned that a number of folks included within the montage had been members of minority events which can be not within the nation’s ruling coalition. “We now have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that permits folks to precise themselves,” the minister mentioned.
The tense engagement was in comparison with that of a February 2025 assembly with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the place Trump and Vance attacked him over the warfare. Nonetheless, South African leaders and reporters had blended critiques, some praising Ramaphosa, who’s a protege of Nelson Mandela, for staying calm below elevated stress, however others needed extra.
In keeping with NPR, Ramaphosa himself was getting ready for the worst. “I do know that many South Africans had been crammed with concern and concern that we’ll have a ‘Z’ second,” the president mentioned throughout a press briefing. “And all that didn’t ensue.”
He seemingly apologized to South African reporters who had traveled to Washington, D.C., to witness some drama however acquired the other. One reporter claimed to be glad with the dramatics, whereas one other mentioned Ramaphosa deserved a drink.
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