South Africa’s head of state Cyril Ramaphosa has labelled Donald Trump’s plan to let white Afrikaners seek refugee status in the United States “racist,” adding that the American president was “truly uninformed,” a rare moment of outright censure.
Ramaphosa told the New York Times that the Oval Office encounter last year, during which Trump dimmed the lights and showed a clip he wrongly asserted proved a “white genocide” in South Africa, was a “spectacle” and an “ambush.”
“I simply thought he was completely uninformed, truly uninformed,” Ramaphosa said. “It seemed he viewed South Africa through a hazy lens, ignoring the genuine damage apartheid caused. To me, he was merely dismissive.”
Trump has singled out South Africa since beginning his second term in January 2025, circulating untrue claims that the nation’s white minority is facing a “genocide” and that the state is confiscating their land.
In May, Washington broadened refugee eligibility to Afrikaners – former leaders of the oppressive minority apartheid regime who, on average, remain far wealthier than Black South Africans – while cutting its refugee programme for those fleeing conflict and persecution.
Trump declined to attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November and barred South Africa from the US‑hosted meeting in Miami scheduled for later this year.
“I consider the Afrikaner policy racist,” Ramaphosa said. “It reflects a racist attitude that we need to diminish so he can grasp the real facts.”
In a comment to the New York Times, the White House asserted that Trump was highlighting “the harrowing stories of Afrikaners.”
The statement read: “The South African government, at best, remains silent, but President Trump possesses a humanitarian heart. He will keep speaking the truth about these injustices.”
Ramaphosa replied: “There is no white genocide, nor any seizure of white‑owned land. White farmers are not being expelled or mistreated.”
The South African president, who will step down as leader of the African National Congress next year and leave the presidency in 2029, was unusually candid about Trump.
He added: “We are surprised by the focus he places on us. We are a small nation and pose no threat to the United States.”
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