President Donald Trump will welcome the leader of South Africa to the White House on Wednesday after he accused the foreign government of presiding over the “genocide” of white farmers.
After a week of meetings with Middle Eastern leaders and a two-hour phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump will greet South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to discuss the country’s Expropriation Act, which allows for the seizure of farm land without compensation if the government determines that doing so is “just and equitable and in the public interest.”
FLEEING PERSECUTION, SOUTH AFRICAN ARRIVALS SCRAMBLE REFUGEE POLITICS
The Trump administration strongly opposes the measure and responded to it by granting refugee status to white Afrikaner farmers, 49 of whom arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport earlier this month. The debate has incensed Ramaphosa, who told the group, “When you run away, you are a coward.”
Both men will make their case to the other when they meet at the White House, with Ramaphosa especially hoping to patch things up on behalf of his country.
“Recent events make it very difficult for South Africa, particularly,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “South Africa is not much compared to the United States in terms of economic might, in terms of influence. … I think President Ramaphosa will try to get to a point of commonality and understanding with President Trump.”
Both leaders pride themselves on deal-making, with Trump leaning on his business background and Ramaphosa being a veteran of labor union negotiations. Dizolele expects the meeting to yield some results.
Nile Gardiner, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees that South Africa will want to improve its standing with the U.S. during the high-stakes meeting.
“The goal for the South African government is clearly to restore relations with Washington,” Gardiner said. “The goal for the U.S. is to see a significant change in behavior and approach by the government in Pretoria.”
The land confiscation matter stems from the fact that a small percentage of white South African citizens own a majority of the nation’s farmland, dating to the days of the country’s racially segregated apartheid regime. The South African government wants to redistribute land in an attempt to right past wrongs, which has caused accusations of racial discrimination from Trump and his allies.
However, Gardiner compares the push to that of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe during the early 2000s, which led to famine and economic decline. He says South Africa risks the same fate if its farmers continue fleeing the country.
While it’s a decades-old issue in South Africa, the plight of Afrikaners has a surprisingly long history in the Trump administration as well.
Trump was first alerted to the issue by a Tucker Carlson segment on Fox News in 2018, posting afterward that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.”
Little concrete action emerged at the time, but things changed when Trump got back into office.
This time around, Trump has a loyal Cabinet plus a top South African ally in Elon Musk. When Ramaphosa launched a defense of the Expropriation Act on X, Musk replied with, “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”
Trump characterized the situation as “a genocide that’s taking place” during a press conference earlier this month, though the White House used softer language in a later statement. “But it’s a terrible thing that’s taking place. And farmers are being killed. They happen to be white, but whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed, and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.”
South African government officials say that the violence Afrikaners have experienced is not racially motivated or limited to white victims but is a reflection of a crime problem the whole country is battling.
Along with welcoming refugees, the Trump administration has sanctioned South Africa and boycotted the upcoming G20 meetings to be held there.
The refugee issue has angered his opponents for two reasons. One is that Trump has tried to ban most refugee admissions, making the South African farmers a striking exception.
The other is a raging dispute over just how much the nation’s white farmers have suffered.
The government does not keep statistics regarding the number of white farmers killed, but news of brutal attacks, including torture, rape, and mutilation, has enraged many Afrikaners.
The South African government emphatically denies bias against Afrikaners, pointing out that crime rates are high across the country and saying it is “completely false” that farmers are being persecuted. It also says no land has been seized yet while acknowledging that remains a possibility.
Dizolele said the new laws include due process, such as court hearings and appeals over land seizure, comparing them to eminent domain laws in the U.S.
“Eminent domain comes with all kind of rules, right?” Dizolele said. “You have to tell people why. ‘Why are you moving me from my farm? Are you moving from my farm just because I’m white, or are you moving me from my farm because you’re going to build a road here and my farm is in the way, in which case, it doesn’t matter if I’m white or black?’”
Dizolele said it is unlikely that Ramaphosa will be willing to budge on the Expropriation Act in negotiations.
But the White House strongly opposes it.
“I don’t care about their race, their color, their height, their weight — I don’t care about anything,” Trump added. “I just know that what’s happening is terrible.”
His top advisers are echoing that stance.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said people should celebrate the arrival of the refugees, arguing that the U.S. is fulfilling its reputation of being a “beacon” for the world.
Another point of contention will be South Africa’s bringing genocide claims against Israel in the International Court of Justice, something that both the Trump and Biden administrations opposed.
“South Africa in recent years has embarked upon a very dangerous foreign policy course,” Gardiner said. “It is increasingly isolated from the U.S. overall, and so this will be a very challenging meeting for the South Africans.”
Fleeing persecution, South African arrivals scramble refugee politics
Dizolele agreed that the meeting will be a challenge for Ramaphosa, saying the refugees fuel disunity in the country that calls itself the “rainbow nation.”
“South Africa is facing a lot of challenges, but also showing that it can find a way forward,” he said. “The Afrikaner refugee issue has the potential of inflaming things in South Africa, and that’s not good for South Africa.”