WATCH: ‘SA is out of control,’ Trump says ahead of meeting with Ramaphosa

US President Donald Trump is expected to confront President Cyril Ramaphosa about the apparent genocide against white South Africans and Afrikaner farmers.

This follows Trump’s claim last week that “South Africa was out of control”.

The stage is set for the anticipated heated and robust meeting between Ramaphosa and Trump, expected to take place at the White House on Wednesday.

Ramaphosa arrived in Washington on Monday afternoon with his delegation for his working visit to the US amid tensions between the two countries.

‘SA out of control’

Speaking aboard Air Force One, Trump claimed farmers in South Africa are being “treated brutally”.

“From all evidence, the farmers in South Africa are being treated brutally, it’s been reported, and nobody wants to cover it. But they happened to be white, and if they were black, I would do the exact same thing (granting asylum).

“We treat people very well where we see a genocide going on. So, it’s a genocide, that’s terrible, and I happen to believe it could very well be. South Africa is out of control, and it’s been out of control for a very long time, and the media doesn’t report it,” Trump claimed.

WATCH: Donald Trump speaks about South Africa on Air Force One

Yesterday aboard Air Force One, President Trump said: “All evidence indicates the farmers in South Africa are treated brutally.” He has the receipts I think the upcoming meeting with Ramaphosa won’t go the way the South African government expects. pic.twitter.com/KdEuv0S3UU

— Danie Barnard (@DaanBarnard) May 17, 2025

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Zelensky-style ambush

There is speculation about how Trump’s meeting with Ramaphosa will go, raising fears Ramaphosa is walking into a “Zelensky-style ambush,” referring to the viral clash that took place when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the White House in February.

However, Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, said the president is not “apprehensive” about the meeting with Trump.

“He’s looking forward to it, he’s highly enthused, and we’re looking forward to a very successful meeting aimed at resetting the relationship between South Africa and the United States. He’s not apprehensive at all.

“We don’t think President Trump invited President Ramaphosa for that kind of treatment… “President Ramaphosa is not President Zelensky. He’s got his own style of engaging. He’s got his own style of communicating, and so we cannot attribute that event to what may or may not happen tomorrow”.

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Afrikaner refugees

Magwenya said the issue of the white Afrikaner refugees being granted asylum in the US by Trump will be addressed by Ramaphosa.

“In the build up to tomorrow’s meeting, there’s been an increasing or rather, let me put it this way, the assertion that there’s a persecution of white people in South Africa has kind of been made repeatedly, and so clearly it’s an issue that needs to be addressed, and it won’t be addressed”.

Before Trump decided to grant Afrikaners asylum in the US, Trump signed an executive order in February, halting federal aid to South Africa after Ramaphosa signed the Expropriation Act, which the US president said imposes “unjust racial discrimination” against white Afrikaner farmers.

“In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation,” Trump’s order read.

ALSO READ: AfriForum, Solidarity meet with top Trump officials [VIDEO]

Ramaphosa responded to Trump on X (formerly Twitter), saying he wants to “engage” with the U.S. He denied Trump’s claims about land being confiscated.

‘Keep America’

During this time, a video of Ramaphosa launching an attack on Trump also resurfaced from when the leaders clashed on land expropriation during Trump’s first term in 2018.

Ramaphosa was uncharacteristically aggressive in his response to a tweet from Trump on land expropriation in South Africa.

At one point, he even echoed a famous statement by former Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, who once told then British prime minister Tony Blair: “Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe.”

“I don’t know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land, because he’s never been here. And he must keep his America, we will keep our South Africa.

“South Africa is our land, South Africa belongs to all the people who live here in South Africa. It does not belong to Donald Trump. He can keep his America,” Ramphosa said.

This is the first time Trump will host an African leader at the White House since he took office in January.

South Africa, which currently presides over the G20, will hand over leadership to the US in November.

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