Trump claimed to have done 'great' with black voters who understood alleged white genocide in South Africa.
US President Donald Trump. Picture: Jim Watson/ AFP
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya has reacted to Trump’s latest claims of white genocide in South Africa.
Speaking at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Friday evening, Trump reflected on his administration’s action against migration and their refugee programme for “persecuted South Africans”.
Although Trump did not explicitly say that only white farmers were approved through the program, his comments alluded to it when speaking of a white “genocide” in the country.
“We stopped third-world migration. We suspended all refugee resettlement except for persecuted South Africans. They’re being persecuted in South Africa.
“There’s a very horrible thing going on in South Africa. It’s a genocide. It’s a horrible thing. And we made it possible for these people to come into our country. They kill people if they’re white. If you’re a white person.”
Crime statistics and reports do not support the claim, nor has there been any credible evidence of such a genocide in the country, but Trump has often used it in his speeches since his re-election.
He claimed to have done “great with the black vote, the African-American vote”, and these voters understood “better than anybody” that “South Africa kill white farmers.”
He claimed the persecution was “terrible” and “we can’t let it go on.”
WATCH: Trump’s comments on South Africa
‘Undeterred’
His comments have again sparked debate and fierce reaction in South Africa, with Magwenya suggesting the country was “rational and undeterred” by Trump’s comments.
“We know our painful past too well. As we appreciate our present moment, we are defining our future, owning our truth as we own our destiny. We are rational and undeterred.”
‘Subtle message that black people are savages’
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula was more stinging, claiming Trump’s comments were a “subtle message that black people are savages who kill with impunity.”
“The world is on our side in pushing back against this distortion, disinformation, and racist branding of black people.
“There is no genocide against white people in South Africa. Black people are the ones who, throughout history, from the Slave trade, Jim Crow, apartheid, to modern economic exclusion, have faced the brunt of a savage system designed to strip them first of their dignity and ultimately their humanity.
“I will always call out this lie every time it is peddled.”
