On May 21, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in a tense Oval Office meeting, focusing on South Africa’s high murder rate and alleging a “genocide” against white Afrikaner farmers. Trump played a video showing a field of white crosses, which he claimed were burial sites for over 1,000 murdered white farmers, and presented news articles to support his claims of widespread violence. He also referenced chants of “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer” by opposition politician Julius Malema, suggesting they incited violence against white farmers. This echoed claims amplified by Trump’s ally, Elon Musk, who was present but silent during the meeting. Trump’s actions followed his administration’s decision to grant refugee status to 59 white South Africans, cut aid, and expel South Africa’s ambassador, citing alleged persecution and land seizures.
South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with 45 murders per 100,000 people in 2023, per UN data. Official South African Police Service (SAPS) figures report 26,232 murders in 2024, with 44 linked to farming communities, including eight farmers, though race-based data is not publicly released. Between October and December 2024, 9,696 murders occurred, 12 on farms, with one farmer and others likely farm workers, who are often Black. These figures indicate farm murders are a tiny fraction (0.2%) of total homicides, with Black South Africans bearing the brunt of violent crime, particularly in urban townships.
Ramaphosa, accompanied by white South African figures like Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen and golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, pushed back, denying any genocide and noting that crime affects all races, with Black victims forming the majority. He clarified that the crosses in Trump’s video were from a 2020 protest in KwaZulu-Natal, not graves, symbolizing farm murders after the killing of a white farming couple. Ramaphosa emphasized that inflammatory rhetoric, like Malema’s, does not reflect government policy, as South Africa is a multiparty democracy. He cited Nelson Mandela’s legacy to underscore racial reconciliation efforts and maintained composure despite Trump’s interruptions.
The meeting, initially aimed at resetting U.S.-South Africa trade relations amid Trump’s 30% tariffs, was overshadowed by his focus on white farmer safety. South Africa’s new Expropriation Act, allowing land redistribution without compensation in rare cases, was cited by Trump as evidence of anti-white policies, though no such seizures have occurred, and the law targets apartheid-era land inequities. White Afrikaners, 7.3% of the population, own 72% of farmland, a disparity fueling tensions but not violence on the scale Trump claimed. Experts, including South African courts and scholars, dismiss the “white genocide” narrative as a far-right conspiracy, with a February 2025 court ruling calling it “clearly imagined.”
Ramaphosa called the meeting a “great success” for trade discussions, expressing hope for continued engagement, including at the G20 summit in Johannesburg. However, Trump’s actions, including showing a misidentified image from the Democratic Republic of Congo as evidence, drew criticism for promoting debunked claims rooted in white nationalist rhetoric.
Key Points:
- South Africa’s murder rate is high (26,232 in 2024), but farm murders (44, mostly non-farmers) are less than 0.2% of the total, with no evidence of racial targeting.
- Trump’s “genocide” claim is unsupported; Black South Africans face the majority of violent crime.
- The video of crosses was a 2020 protest memorial, not a burial site, and one image was from Congo, not South Africa.
- Ramaphosa emphasized crime’s broad impact and rejected genocide allegations, focusing on trade and diplomacy.
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Johannesburg – South Africans Welcome Donald Trump‘S Highly Critical Oval Office Statements Wednsday About Killings in the Country, According to Analysts.
The President Showed Video Clips and Gave South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa a Sheaf of News Clippings He Said Show Farm Murders.
Many belief this “Ambush” by President Trump Toward The South African Leader is Good for the Country, Because It CHROWS A Sharp Light on the Darknes That Is the High Level of Killings in the Cultry, and President Ramaphosa’s Government is said to be failing to adequately tackle it.
Approximately 6,953 people of all races were murdered in south Africa in just the last three months of 2024, according to police statistics. That is 76 people on average killed every day.
Trump Confronts South African President with Video on Treatment of White Farmers
President Donald Trump, Left, Shows Documents as He Meets South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wedns, May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC (AP/Evan Vucci)
Additionally, Killers are literal Getting Away with Murder. It was reported that between 2019 and 2022 only 12% of Murder Prosecutions Resulted in a Conviction.
“President Trump’s Focus on Vioilent Crime in South Africa is a Strong Positive to Emerge from the Oval Office Meeting,” Analyst Frans Cronje Told Fox News Digital.
Cronje, President of the washington-based yorktown foundation for freedom, added, “South Africa Has Averaged an Intensive Homicide Rate of Around 40 Homicides Per 100 000 Residents Since BComing A Democracy in 1994. “
He Continued, “The Global Figure is Nearer 4/100 000. of almost a billion People. “
A plaincloths police officer with the johannesburg metro police department questions a man found inside a diladated building used as a shelter in johannesburg on May 15, 2023. (Photo by Michele Spatari/AFP Via Getty Images)
At home, the South African Government has been harshly and reepeatedly criticized for not tackling Vioilent crime effectively.
Cronje said, “The south African government has failed the people of the country in not taking the blight of Criminal Violence Seriuriously, and External Us Pressure to Address the Violence as AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS AS PRESSURES Major Investment Treaties is Pressure that Domestic South African Activists May Employcts to address their government’s neglect. “
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Crosses are planted on a hillseide at the white cross monument, each one marking a white farmer who has been killed in a farm murder, on Oct. 31, 2017 in YTERBERG, Near Langebaan, South Africa. A long campaign of violence against the country’s farmers, who are larGly white, have inflamed political and Racial tensions Nearly a Quarter-AF-AF-AFANTURY AFERTURY The Fall of Aptheid. (Gulshan Khan/AFP Via Getty Images)
Analyst max meizlish told fox news digital, “It’s clea that decades of corruption in south Africa have holowed out the state’s ability to provide even Electricity, to a functioning police force and equal protection under the law. “
Meizlish, a Senior Research Analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Added that in the Election Here Last Year, “The anc lost it is national majority for the first time at the end of Aparthheid.” The African National Congress (ANC) Government Took Power in 1994.
“The Ramaphosa government is devoting more time and resources to course brics allies like China, Russia, and Iran, Than to restoring Order at home.
“President Trump is Right to Demand Change from Ramaphosa on Everything from Land Reform and Human Rights Abuses to South Africa’s Growing Alignment With America’s Adversaries,” He stated.
Perhaps off script, right inside the oval office last wedding, zingiswa losi, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Spoke Out About Other Serial Serial Unchecked. “There is no doubt about it that we are a violent nation,” She Told President Trump and the others crammed into the room. She added, “If you go into the rural area (there is a) Black Majority, You would see women, Elderly, Being Raped, Being Killed, Being Murdered.”
President of the Ruling African National Congress and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Speaks to Supporters during the anc siyanqoba rally help at FNB Stadium on May 25, 2024 In Johannessburg. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
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Losi continued, “and the problem in south africa, it is not necessarily about race, but it is about crime. And we think that we are here to say, how do we do we bot nations work to rest Investment… to really address the levels of crime that we have in our country. “
Sources say that after refusing to let elon musk brings his starlink satellite communications system into south africa, citing the need for local partial ownership, Ramaphosa and His Advisor Havisor Havisor Realized that Starlink’s Data Services Could Help Bring Greater Security, Particularly to Rural Areas of the Country.
In Crime Statistics for the first three months of this year released on Friday, which critics say are not verified indexently, the police minister claimd five of the Six people was white.
President Donald Trump, Right, Meets South African President Cyril Ramaxaosa in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednsday, May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC (AP/Evan Vucci)
However, with little effective police protection in the sites, and even less in the rural areas, a black farmer’s comment sums up the works of many south Africans today. Standing at the Funeral of a Rural White Farmer, He said to an institute of race relations representative “Although he’s white, we don’t look at the color. We are doing the same thing
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Fox news digital reached out to the south African government for comment, but they did not respond.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/trumps-criticism-south-africas-violent-crime-crisis-receives-unexpected-local-support