South Africa's leader aims to salvage relationship with Trump in White House visit

JOHANNESBURG — U.S. President Donald Trump will host South Africa's leader at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting that might be tense after Trump accused the country's government of allowing a ''genocide'' to take place against minority white farmers.

South Africa has strongly rejected the allegation and President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed for the meeting with Trump in an attempt to salvage his country's relationship with the United States, which is at its lowest point since the end of the apartheid system of racial segregation in 1994.

Trump has launched a series of accusations at South Africa's Black-led government, including that it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy.

Ramaphosa said he hopes to correct what he calls damaging mischaracterizations during the meeting, which is Trump's first with an African leader at the White House since he returned to office.

Some in South Africa worry their leader might get "Zelenskyy'd" — a reference to the public bashing Trump and Vice President JD Vance handed out to the Ukrainian president in their infamous Oval Office meeting in February.

In advance of the meeting, a White House official said Trump's topics of discussion with Ramaphosa were likely to include the need to condemn politicians who ''promote genocidal rhetoric'' and to classify farm attacks as a priority crime. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, said Trump also was likely to raise South African race-based barriers to trade and the need to ''stop scaring off investors.''

Here's what to know ahead of the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting.

Will Trump stand by the genocide allegation?

Trump's criticism of South Africa began in early February in a post on Truth Social when he accused South Africa's government of seizing land from white Afrikaner farmers and a "massive Human Rights VIOLATION" against members of the white minority.

Trump's allegation that Afrikaners were being mistreated was at the center of an executive order he issued days later that cut all U.S. assistance to South Africa.

He went further this month, alleging there was a ''genocide'' against white farmers and the Trump administration has brought a small group of white South Africans to the U.S. as refugees in what it says is the start of a larger relocation program.

The U.S. has been asked if it will stand by the genocide allegation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with CBS that it would and that the administration felt there was evidence, citing instances of white farmers being murdered and claiming some were being ''forcibly removed'' from their properties.

Some white farmers have been killed in violent home invasions. But the South African government says the causes behind the relatively small number of homicides are misunderstood by the Trump administration; they are part of the country's severe problems with crime and not racially motivated, it says. Black farmers have also been killed.

The South African government has said the allegations against it are misinformation.

South African Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, who is white and a member of a different political party from Ramaphosa, said in an interview with The Associated Press that no land was being seized from farmers and claims of genocide were false.

''When you mischaracterize things like that and this misinformation gets out, it does have real-world consequences,'' said Steenhuisen, who is part of the South African delegation in Washington.

‘Kill the farmer' chant

The White House official said Trump would also likely impress on Ramaphosa the need for the South African government to publicly condemn politicians who repeat an apartheid-era chant that contains the lyrics ''kill the farmer'' and ''shoot the farmer.'' The chant is sometimes used at political rallies by a minority opposition party.

It has often been cited by critics of South Africa — including South African-born Trump ally Elon Musk — as evidence of the persecution of white farmers because it uses the word Boer, which specifically refers to Afrikaners.

While Ramaphosa's party does not use the chant, the government has not condemned it. An Afrikaner group says it should be labelled hate speech.

What is Musk's connection?

Musk has been at the forefront of the criticism of his homeland, casting its affirmative action business laws as racist. Musk said on social media that his Starlink satellite internet service wasn't able to get a license to operate in South Africa because he was white.

South African authorities say Starlink hasn't formally applied. If it did, it would be bound by laws that require foreign companies to allow 30% of their South African subsidiaries to be owned by shareholders who are Black or from other racial groups disadvantaged under apartheid.

The Trump administration considered those laws a trade barrier and U.S. companies should be exempt from racial requirements, according to the White House official.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday, quoting unnamed sources, that South Africa was willing to negotiate on easing the laws for Musk's Starlink in an attempt to defuse tensions with the U.S. Ramaphosa didn't comment on any possible discussions with Musk or his representatives when asked by South African reporters in Washington.

Getting 'Zelenskyy'd'

Ramaphosa was also asked if he worried he might be ''humiliated'' in a public appearance with Trump. Parts of the South African media have questioned whether Ramaphosa might get ''Zelenskyy'd'' at the White House — a reference to Trump's berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of the world's media.

Trump has directed much of his criticism at Ramaphosa and senior government officials, accusing them of doing ''some terrible things.''

Ramaphosa said the meeting would focus on trade and normalizing relations and he was not concerned it would become confrontational or that he would be humiliated.

''South Africans are never humiliated, are they? South Africans always go into everything holding their heads high,'' he said.

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AP White House Correspondent Zeke Miller contributed to this report.

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AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa