Cyril Ramaphosa has been commended at home for his handling of Donald Trump‘s “white genocide” ambush at the Oval Office, but the harsh reality of South Africa‘s violent crime crisis has still damaged the country’s image.
The South African president responded to Trump’s claims that South Africa’s Afrikaner community is facing widespread persecution because of their race with hard facts strategically delivered by black and white members of his delegation.
When the US president repeatedly asserted that South Africa’s white farmers are facing a genocide, it was the Afrikaner billionaire businessman, Johann Rupert, who corrected Trump, saying his own black compatriots were equally targeted by violence.
South Africa’s agriculture minister, John Steenhuisen, was also called on by Ramaphosa to set the US president straight about local politicians who refuse to stop singing a rally cry called Kill the Boer.
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Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters political party and other South African politicians were shown singing the song in a short video played by Trump to back up his claims that Afrikaners are targeted because of their race.
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However, it was explained that Malema fronted one of parliament’s minor parties and that his views were not held by the vast majority of South Africans.
Steenhuisen, whose Democratic Alliance is in a 10-party coalition with Ramaphosa’s ANC, told Trump: “The reason we chose to join hands was to keep those people out of power.”
Despite some well-managed responses to Trump’s ambush at the White House, Ramaphosa and his team did not shy away from South Africa’s violent crime reality.
Even though the country recorded a decrease in its levels of violent crime for the third quarter of the 2024/25 financial year, the country’s murder rate of 42 per 100,000 people is still one of the highest in the world.
Nevertheless, South Africa’s delegation used this to press Trump and his administration to assist them with the technology, trade and investment they need to counter the crisis, rather than trying to mitigate the facts.
Indeed, the approach was consistent with Ramaphosa and his team’s stated intention before the meeting, which was to focus on trade and investment and “reset” a relationship that had become “contaminated” by the issues they discussed.
Ramaphosa said that his main takeaways from the meeting were that the US would attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November, which had been in doubt beforehand, and that Trump had not fully made up his mind on whether Afrikaners were facing a genocide.
“So, all in all, I do believe our visit here has been a great success. We have been able to achieve what we set out to achieve,” he told reporters.
A South African delegation member who asked not to be named said that before the Oval Office briefing the meetings with their US counterparts had been “cordial and constructive” and that Trump had been a “warm and generous host”.
“It was no cake walk, and it was always going to be tough, but I think we left better than we came in,” he told The Irish Times.
Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Priyal Singh said he believed Ramaphosa had done well under the circumstances, going into the meeting with a clear message from which he did not deviate.
“Resetting the bilateral partnership was key. A stronger partnership for trade and investment was top of Ramaphosa’s agenda. US investment was discussed as a positive factor in helping South Africa tackle crime, unemployment and poverty,” he said.
Singh went on to say that the meeting was less hostile than expected, except for the video, which was planned to corner South Africa’s president.
However, “Ramaphosa capably steered the conversation back to South Africa’s priorities and the composition of his delegation worked in his favour,” Singh said.
“Trump’s attendance at the G20 Summit would confirm improved relations,” he said, but he added that “any positive movement on trade and investment will require some form of agreement on addressing South Africa’s crime and farm murder problem”.
