Trump, the South African president has a tense exchange at the White House meeting

The differences between President Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa reached a critical point on Wednesday afternoon in a tense exchange in the oval office, since Trump faced him about whether the white genocide is taking place in South Africa.

Trump and Ramaphosa gathered for a critical conversation, with the billionaire born in South Africa Elon Musk in the room, amid tensions between the United States and South Africa, after the United States. accepted 59 Blancos Afrikaners last week and granted status as refugees.

At one point in the meeting, Ramaphosa took a question for Mr. Trump about what would be needed to persuade him that white genocide is not happening in South Africa.

“He will take President Trump to listen to the voices of the South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, such as those here,” Ramaphosa replied, who took the White House to the White House. “When we have conversations between us at a quiet table, President Trump will be needed to listen to them. I will not repeat what I have been saying.”

Mr. Trump replied that there are “thousands of stories” and “documentaries” about the situation in South Africa, before directing their staff to mitigate the lights in the oval office and play a video for everyone in the room about accusations of violence against the White South Africans. The president said the images show burial sites of white farmers.

After the video concluded, Mr. Trump and Ramaphosa were round trip over the situation.

Ramaphosa said he had not seen the videos that President’s staff played and said the videos do not represent government policy. He said he and his party are “completely opposite” to the language used in the footage.

“We have dead white people, dead white farmers, especially,” Trump said.

Others in the South African delegation that accompanied Ramaphosa told Mr. Trump that the problem is not the white genocide in South Africa, but rather, the crime in general, which affects the South Africans through demography. Ramaphosa also backed away.

“There is crime in our country,” he said. “People who are unfortunately killed through criminal activities are not only white. Most of them are black people.”

The Trump-Ramaphosa meeting, in which journalists were allowed in the room for more than an hour, is another instance of the president of the United States that invites the media to witness and transmit irritable exchanges with other world leaders, instead of maintaining those discussions behind closed doors.

Mr. Trump has They said repeatedly white farmers In South Africa they have been the objectives of the “genocide”, an accusation of South Africa and Ramaphosa have rejected, and insists that South Africa is “out of control”, becoming almizar. At Wednesday’s meeting, Trump said “Elon wanted” Afrikaners to be allowed to enter the United States as refugees. During the time, the reporters were in the Oval office for the meeting, Musk said nothing.

The beginning of the Oval office meeting was softer. Trump described him as a “great honor” to be with South African president, who, he said, “is certainly in some circles, really respected, in other circles, a little less respected, like all of us, of justice.”

“We are essentially here to restore the relationship between the United States and South Africa,” Ramaphosa said in his initial comments.

When a journalist asked him why the government is letting Blancos Afrikaners enter the United States while denying the entrance to other refugees, the president began criticizing the media that asked the question.

“We have had huge complaints about Africa, about other countries, of people,” Trump said. “They said there are many very bad things in Africa, and that is what we are going to discuss today.”

“We have many people who feel they are being persecuted,” Trump added.

Afrikaners are white South Africans of Dutch ancestry that have lived in South Africa for four centuries. In addition to English, Afrikaners have their own language, Afrikaans, which has its roots in Dutch and is one of the 12 official languages ​​in South Africa.

The accelerated process for Afrikaners occurs when the Trump administration is working to suspend the refugee intake program, attracting multiple judicial challenges.

In a tense exchange during a hearing about Capitol Hill on Tuesday on budgetary matters, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine de Virginia asked the Secretary of State Framebro Rubio if Afrikaners are more persecuted than the Uigures or the Rohingyas, or the dissidents in Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua, or that those who would be threatened by the Taliban, should return to the Afghan.

Kaine suggested that the Trump administration is giving preference to Afrikaners due to the color of her skin, and asked Rubio why the United States should prioritize Afrikaners. Rubio said Afrikaners are a “small subset.”

“It’s a new problem,” said Rubio. “And the president identified him as a problem and wanted to use it as an example. But that is different from having these refugee programs that basically spent money to put people in the communities and accommodate them, and was acting as a magnet.”

“Let me challenge you, and I will say that the public, if you want to understand about the appointment, persecution, Afrikaner farmers, go see the composition of the South African government,” Kaine replied. “Since July 2024, there is a government of National Unity. And the opposition party today, the ANC, the Afrikaner party, the alliance of democracy, is part of the governor coalition. They joined the government of the coalition of one year, and the leader of that party was given the remmit of the Minister of Agriculture Jan Steenhuis, and he is the leader of the AFFIKAner party, which still represents that party, which still represents that party, which still represents that party, which still represents that party, the party that still represents that party. Minister of Agriculture, Jan Steenhuis, is the leader of the former Affrikaner, who is still represented by the former Minister of Agriculture of Southaners.

In:
• South Africa
• Donald Trump

Caroline Linton and Sara Cook contributed to this report.