In a White House meeting on Wednesday, President Trump showed President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa a social media video of a rural road lined with white crosses and hundreds of vehicles.
Mr. Trump told Mr. Ramaphosa that the footage showed “burial sites” of “over 1,000” white farmers in South Africa.
A New York Times analysis found that the footage instead showed a memorial procession on Sept. 5, 2020, near Newcastle, South Africa. The event, according to a local news website, was for a white farming couple in the area who the police said had been murdered in late August of that year.
The crosses were planted in the days ahead of the event and were later removed.
The misrepresentation of the footage took place during a stunning meeting in which Mr. Trump made false claims about a genocide against white farmers. Mr. Trump dimmed the lights to play the footage, presenting it as evidence of racial persecution against white South Africans.
As the clip played, Mr. Trump said: “These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.”
Contrary to Mr. Trump’s statements, the crosses are not gravesites for farmers and were not permanently placed along the road. Footage posted to social media before the remembrance event, in early September 2020, shows people setting up the white crosses, and Google Street View images from 2023 indicate they have since been taken down.
There have been a number of protests against the killing of white farmers in South Africa. White crosses are known to be used at these events to represent slain farmers. Videos and photos at the Sept. 5 event also showed tractors adorned with flags condemning farm murders and a large banner reading, “President Ramaphosa, how many more must die???” stretched between two vehicles above the roadway.
South Africa has an exceptionally high murder rate, but police statistics do not show that white South Africans or farmers are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people.
A White House official told The Times each cross represented a white farmer who had been killed but did not comment on why Mr. Trump had characterized the video as showing burial sites.
It’s unclear where Mr. Trump got the video from, or who, if anyone, characterized to him what the video showed. Elon Musk — who is originally from South Africa and is one of Mr. Trump’s advisers — had posted the video on the social media site X at least twice before today’s meeting.
In Wednesday’s meeting, when Mr. Ramaphosa asked where the video was from, Mr. Trump said, “I mean, it’s in South Africa.”
Riley Mellen is a reporter on The Times’s visual investigations team, which combines traditional reporting with advanced digital forensics.
Aric Toler is a reporter on the Visual Investigations team at The Times where he uses emerging techniques of discovery to analyze open source information.
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