President Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in front of the cameras at the White House on Wednesday over what Trump described as a “genocide” against white farmers in the country.
Ramaphosa was ostensibly in town to discuss trade, but tensions bubbled up over Trump’s focus on a law in South Africa that allows the government to take private land for redistribution as part of an effort to address the legacy of racial apartheid.
“Generally, they’re white farmers and they’re fleeing South Africa and it’s a very sad thing to see, so I hope we can have an explanation about that,” Trump said.
Ramaphosa pushed back, saying he brought with him the minister of agriculture, who is white, as well as golfing champions Ernie Els and Retief Goosen.
“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends, like those here,” Ramaphosa responded.
“If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, these gentlemen would not be here, including my minister of agriculture, he would not be here, so it will take President Trump listening to their stories, their perspectives.”
Trump then surprised his guests by having the lights dimmed to play a documentary video that he said provided evidence of genocide, which included images of mass burial sites.
“I’d like to know where that is because this I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa said.
Trump then paged through printed out news stories.
“Death, death, horrible death,” Trump said as he flipped through the pages.
Elon Musk, a South African native and critic of Ramaphosa’s government, was also in attendance.
The U.S. has expelled South Africa’s ambassador and is accepting dozens of white Afrikaner farmers as refugees, even as it clamps down on refugees seeking asylum from other countries.
“We take from many locations if we feel there is persecution or genocide going on,” Trump said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was grilled on the issue by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday.
“The United States has a right to pick and choose who they allow into the United States,” Rubio said in a heated exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).
“Based on the color of somebody’s skin?” Kaine responded.
“You’re the one that’s talking about the color of their skin, not me,” Rubio shot back. “These are people whose farms were burned down and they were killed because of the color of their skin.”
A South African court has dismissed claims of a “white genocide.” News outlets have challenged the notion of a “white genocide” while acknowledging there have been killings.
Ramaphosa left the White House saying his private meeting with Trump went “very well” and that the president listened to him.
Here are The Hill’s five takeaways from the meeting.
