(Adnkronos) – Cyril Ramaphosa arrives in Washington today with the intention of talking about trade and business, but the South African president risks ending up at the center of a Zelensky-like ambush in the Oval Office today. The visit comes after months of attacks by Donald Trump who accuses the South African government of discrimination against whites, including Afrikaners, the descendants of Dutch settlers who until 1994 imposed a racist apartheid regime that denied civil, political and economic rights to the black majority.
The timing is entirely negative, given that the South African president arrives in Washington a week after about fifty white South Africans whom the Trump administration, in record time and in derogation from the measures with which it has suspended the reception of refugees from practically all over the world, welcomed with great fanfare as refugees fleeing alleged racial discrimination. And even from the risk of “white genocide”, as Trump wrote in several of his posts echoing the arguments of Elon Musk, his billionaire advisor who was born and raised in apartheid South Africa.
“Ramaphosa risks ending up in an ambush in the Oval Office,” Cameron Hudson, former director of the Africa office of the National Security Council during the George Bush administration, told Politico, predicting that the visit will be “an absolute disaster.” A source inside the administration is more possibilist: “it’s 50/50, it could go very well or it could make Zelensky’s visit look like a walk in the park.”
According to the New York Times, Trump will likely raise his accusations of discrimination against Afrikaners in the meeting, asking the South African government to classify attacks against white farmers as a priority crime. He will also ask that American companies investing in South Africa be exempt from complying with the law that requires foreign companies to sell shares to black South Africans or other people who were denied economic opportunities during apartheid.
This last request is at the center of Musk’s criticisms of the South African government, accused of preventing him from bringing his satellite company Starlink to his native country. With the attacks on South African laws, in particular the new land reform, signed by Ramaphosa to rebalance land ownership which, more than 30 years after the end of apartheid, remains largely in the hands of white farmers, the Trump administration intends to globalize the internal crusade against anti-discrimination and diversity measures, the hated DEI that are being erased from institutions, schools and the private sector in the US.
And just yesterday Marco Rubio, who in February deserted the G20 foreign ministers’ summit in South Africa, because of his support for DEI policies, announced that Trump will not go to the leaders’ summit in November, denouncing the fact that South Africa “globally and in multiple international organizations has always voted against America’s interests”.
For his part, Ramaphosa – who in recent days has strongly protested against the reception of white South Africans in the US, stating that there is no discrimination in the country – will try to convince Trump that the United States has much to gain from maintaining close relations with South Africa, the largest African economy. And he will present a proposal for a trade agreement that guarantees Washington better access to South Africa’s important mineral deposits. And he might even – the Times concludes – seek a ‘reset’ in relations with Musk.
