Ramaphosa lands in the US ahead of risky Trump meeting

President Cyril Ramaphosa landed in Washington on Monday night ahead of a risky meeting with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday at the White House.

As part of a united South African government delegation, Ramaphosa has taken ministers John Steenhuisen, Ronald Ramola, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni and Parks Tau on the make-or-break trip to the US capital. Steenhuisen is minister of agriculture as part of Ramaphosa’s government of national unity (GNU) — in which the ANC and DA are the biggest coalition partners.

Read: ‘Bend, bend, bend, but make sure it doesn’t break’

It is unclear who will be in the White House meeting from the SA delegation side with Ramaphosa at this stage, but SA is looking to put on a united front following months of broadsides from Trump, his administration and backers like SA-born US billionaire Elon Musk.

Some of Ramaphosa’s advisers fear he risks a Volodymyr Zelenskiy-style dressing down in the Oval Office.

The meeting on 21 May comes a week after the US chartered a plane to fly dozens of White South Africans to Washington as refugees. Just days earlier, Trump repeated the conspiracy theory, spread by Musk, that White Afrikaner farmers are victims of a genocide and the state is seizing their land.

Listen/read:
Trump, trade, and tensions: What’s at stake in Ramaphosa’s US visit?
Ramaphosa heads to US to ease tensions with Trump
Trump attacks South Africa again, days before Ramaphosa visits

People close to Ramaphosa fear that he’s being set up to be humiliated like Ukraine’s leader, with some suggesting he cancel the trip, according to four people familiar with discussions. But Ramaphosa is confident he can use the chance to lay out the facts — White people are not a persecuted minority in South Africa and there is no genocide — propose some friendly trade conditions and lower the temperature ahead of future meetings including the Group of 20 (G20) summit that he’s hosting in Johannesburg in November, which Trump may skip, according to the people.

AfriForum and other fringe White Afrikaans rights groups — which advocate for descendants of the Europeans who settled in South Africa from the 1600s — have spent years lobbying rightwing US politicians about murders of White farmers, including meeting members of the first Trump administration and TV personalities like Tucker Carlson.

An appearance by Ernst Roets, AfriForum’s then-deputy chief executive, on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in 2018 helped prompt Trump to weigh in for the first time. But the groups don’t claim there’s a genocide and haven’t taken Trump up on his offer to move to the US as refugees.

White people control about 72% of farmland despite accounting for only 7% of the country’s 63 million people. But there have been no official land seizures in South Africa since apartheid ended in 1994, while police statistics show young Black men bear the brunt of violent crime.

Official data show that White households on average earn five times more than their Black counterparts.

A South African court in February ruled that there was no evidence to support the claim that there was a genocide against White people, calling the idea “clearly imagined and not real.”

Millionaire to billionaire

Ramaphosa, a successful businessman, thinks that a personal relationship — millionaire to billionaire — is the best way to rebuild ties with his country’s second-biggest trading partner, according to two people close to the deliberations.

Observers also argue that his experience negotiating the end of apartheid and South Africa’s first democratic constitution has prepared him well for dealing with Trump.

“He knows how to handle situations like this,” said Sanusha Naidu, senior research associate at the Institute of Global Dialogue in Cape Town.

“He wasn’t the negotiator for the South African political transition for nothing — he is not easily ruffled.”

The onslaught of US criticism has also managed to unite the fractious multi-party, multi-racial coalition government, with the rival-cum-partner DA coming out in support of Ramaphosa’s administration.

Steenhuisen weighs in …

“I think there’s going to be a big opportunity for us and President Ramaphosa to dispel some of the misinformation and myths that have been spread in the US about what’s happening in South Africa,” Steenhuisen told reporters on Friday.

“This nonsense about genocide, this nonsense about mass expropriation of properties — it is simply not true.”

“What you want is a trading partner to be making important decisions about the future of trade on the facts, not on the fictions, so that’s also going to be very important,” added Steenhuisen.

Senior officials have publicly downplayed fears of an Oval Office ambush. Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said last week that the government wasn’t worried.

“There is no one who invites a guest to mistreat them, so we are expecting the highest level of decorum and the necessary protocols to be accorded,” said Ntshavheni, who is with Ramaphosa in Washington.

“We respect our sovereignty, and we take it very seriously, our president has committed that we will not be bullied,” she added.

Read:
US agencies banned from working on SA G20 Summit – report
Trump threatens South Africa on land expropriation
Ramaphosa woos Musk, trumpets trade with the US [Sept 2024]

Still, early last week and then again on Friday, Trump reiterated his accusations that the country was perpetrating a genocide against White Afrikaners. The comments have been seized on by opposition parties, who argue Ramaphosa is being summoned in order to be humiliated.

“The sole intention of the visit by South Africa would be to hold our nation’s leaders to account regarding a non-existent genocide of Afrikaners in our country,” said Sinawo Tambo, spokesman for the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party, which wants to nationalise all land.

“Ramaphosa is therefore poised to be embarrassed and shamed,” just like Zelenskiy was in recent months, said Tambo.

Some advisers argue that the two golf-playing tycoons have more in common than is generally thought.

Ramaphosa previously faced criticism from US lawmakers for his non-aligned stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — but it fits much more closely with Trump’s view, which could be an advantage, some advisers argue. In the week that Ramaphosa hosted Zelenskiy last month, he held calls with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.

Still, the Washington Post last week reported that the Trump administration had banned US agencies from working with the G20, leaving some South African officials convinced that this week’s meeting won’t thaw tensions.

Ramaphosa is going to approach Trump ready to make trade concessions around the automotive, critical mineral and agriculture sectors that form the bulk of the two countries’ commercial ties, according to two advisers. 

The DA however has also taken issue with Ramaphosa’s signing of the update expropriation act that Trump and Musk claim has been used to seize white farmer’s land.

The act is similar to US eminent domain laws — though the law in South Africa allows for expropriation without compensation in certain cases such as land that’s been abandoned and state-owned property not in use. For now, no land has been seized.

“Trump is an ally of people who are pushing a very White supremacist kind of narrative,” said Lukhona Mnguni, political analyst affiliated to the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The idea that there’s a genocide against White people is a discredited, fringe view in South Africa.

Ramaphosa skipping Budget 3.0

In a sign of how important the Trump meeting is — and how it’s united the fractious coalition — Ramaphosa will skip the latest national budget hearings on Wednesday to meet the US leader. For the past few months, budget talks have threatened the stability of the GNU.

Ramaphosa’s willingness to skip the budget reflects the government’s confidence that it’ll pass — and his conviction that he’ll leave Washington with a win.

Read:
Masondo sees Budget 3.0 as done deal
Steenhuisen lauds new budget as ‘credible’
Budget 3.0: Provincial budgets in the firing line?
SA Budget 3.0 loading: Godongwana confirms 21 May
South Africa’s G20 Summit: Can golf help tame Trump?

“The man has been chased by a police dog — do you think he’s frightened by Trump?” JP Landman, an independent political analyst, said at a panel discussion last week, referring to Ramaphosa’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle.

“You can’t predict these things, but he’s a very shrewd and experienced negotiator.”

© 2025 Bloomberg

Follow Moneyweb’s in-depth finance and business news on WhatsApp here.