WASHINGTON, USA — US President Donald Trump, during a high-profile Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, waved around a stack of printed articles claiming they documented a “genocide” against white farmers in South Africa — but one of the key visuals he used was actually from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Trump displayed the papers while speaking to Ramaphosa, declaring, “Death of people, death, death, death, horrible death,” as he flipped through headlines, alleging recent killings of white South Africans. However, one of the images he held up was sourced from a February blog post on “American Thinker,” a fringe American website, and showed Red Cross workers in protective gear handling body bags — an image lifted from a video about a mass prison escape in Goma, DRC.
The original footage, which documented the aftermath of a brutal attack in eastern Congo where women were raped and burned alive, was published by the Indian broadcaster WION using Reuters video.
Despite South Africa’s official crime statistics showing that most victims of violence are young Black men in urban areas, Trump insisted that white farmers were being hunted. “People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety. Their land is being confiscated, and in many cases, they’re being killed,” he said, while Ramaphosa listened quietly, only occasionally responding.
Ramaphosa rejected the claims during the tense exchange. “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here,” he said, referencing white South African celebrities in the room: golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and billionaire Johann Rupert.
According to the South African Police Service, 26,232 murders were recorded in 2024. Only 44 of those were linked to farming communities — and just eight victims were farmers.
Trump, flanked by South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, continued pushing the discredited theory, widely circulated in far-right spaces online, that white South Africans are victims of state-sanctioned violence. “This is sort of the opposite of apartheid,” Trump remarked, comparing the situation to South Africa’s past under white minority rule.
Throughout the meeting, Trump interrupted Ramaphosa several times. When the South African leader pointed out that the majority of crime victims are Black, Trump interjected: “The farmers are not Black.”
Rupert eventually joined the discussion, noting that crime affects all racial groups in South Africa. Ramaphosa, trying to steer the conversation away from sensationalism, focused on economic cooperation, announcing that the two countries had agreed to talks on critical minerals. His trade minister said a proposal had been submitted to buy liquefied natural gas from the US.
Trump did not confirm whether he would attend the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa in November.
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