Donald Trump argued with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa Wednesday about whether there was a so-called “white genocide” in the latter’s own country.
During a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump was asked by one reporter, “What would it take for you to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa?”
Earlier this month, the U.S. president carved out an exception in his refugee ban to allow Afrikaners, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers in South Africa, to immigrate to the U.S., claiming that they were facing a “genocide.”
Ramaphosa quickly stepped in. “Well, I can answer that for the president. It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends like those who are here,” he said.
“It will take President Trump listening to them. I’m not going to be repeating what I’ve been saying,” Ramaphosa continued. “I would say that if there was Afrikaaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me. So, it’ll take him, President Trump listening to their stories, their perspective.”
“We have thousands of stories talking about it, and we have documentaries, we have news stories,” Trump replied, before turning the lights down to play a long clip from an unspecified documentary, which included a clip of the leader of the South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party chanting, “Kill the Boers.” As the video played, Ramaphosa looked increasingly uncomfortable.
After a long moment, Trump began narrating, “Now, this is very bad, these are burial sites, over a thousand, of white farmers.”
“It’s a terrible site, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump continued.
“Have they told you where that is, Mr. President?” Ramaphosa asked. “I’d like to know where that is, because this I’ve never seen.”
“It’s in South Africa,” Trump shrugged.
“We need to find out,” Ramaphosa replied.
Trump was also asked what he hoped Ramaphosa would do about the violence against Afrikaners.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Trump said holding print-outs of several articles. “Look these are articles over the last few days. Death, of… people. Death, death, death, horrible death. Death. I don’t know.”
Trump continued to lament the deaths of white Afrikaners. “If this were the other way around it would be the biggest story. Now, I will say, apartheid—terrible,” Trump said. “That was the biggest story, that was reported all the time. This is sort of the opposite of apartheid.”
Ramaphosa invited John Henry Steenhuisen, South Africa’s minister of Agriculture who is white and from an opposition party, to address Trump’s claims. Steenhuisen admitted that the country had a “rural safety problem” that it was working to address.
Steenhuisen also responded to the documentary clip Trump had shown. “The two individuals in that video that you’ve seen are both leaders of opposition minority parties in South Africa,” he said.
“Now the reason that my party, the Democratic Alliance, which has been an opposition party for over 30 years, chose to join hands with Mr. Ramaphosa’s party was precisely to keep those people out of power. We cannot have those people sitting in the union buildings, making those decisions,” said Steenhuisen.
This story has been updated.
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