Moments before President Donald Trump escorted his South African counterpart into the Oval Office on Wednesday, White House aides could be seen wheeling two large-screen televisions down the driveway and into the West Wing. Little could have prepared President Cyril Ramaphosa for what he was about to see.
Trump ordered the lights dimmed and launched into what amounted to an ambush of his visitor, screening a video he claimed was evidence for his false suggestion that White South Africans are being subjected to persecution and “genocide.”
A shocked Ramaphosa, who had just been exchanging pleasantries with Trump about golf, watched silently. An experienced diplomat who once served as Nelson Mandela’s chief negotiator during talks to end White minority rule, Ramaphosa could barely disguise his discomfort. The moment was an orchestrated one, with Trump’s team also having printed out articles for him to hold up in front of the cameras that he said backed up his claims of White “genocide.”
It was perhaps inevitable that Trump would use the meeting to advance the fringe claims — which he’s amplified for months — that White farmers in South Africa are having their land seized and are being killed in massive numbers. Just last week, 59 White South Africans arrived in the United States after being granted refugee status by the white house.
Since taking office in January, Trump has shown little hesitation at turning his meetings into moments for public hostility. Yet the multimedia surprise exceeded anything he has previously staged in the Oval Office. Even his shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in February, which appeared to some critics as a preplanned trap, did not come with visual aids.
A White House official said Trump was using Wednesday’s event to shed light on an issue that the administration believes the “media had turned a blind eye to.” Trump’s allies applauded the confrontation online, seeing it as another example of the president holding world leaders accountable.
The organized rollout of the material suggested how eager Trump and his team were ahead of time to use the meeting to advance their narrative of persecution, even as Ramaphosa was hoping to discuss trade and other geopolitical issues.
No amount of flattery or calibration on the part of the South African leader — be it inviting two professional golfers to join his delegation or complimenting Trump on his golden Oval Office redecoration — was enough to stave off the waiting surprise.
“What you saw in the speeches that were being made—that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves,” Ramaphosa said after the video. “Our government policy is completely, completely against what he was saying.”
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