Tensions are escalating between South Africa and the United States after President Donald Trump again alleged that White South Africans are being targeted in what he described as a possible ‘genocide’ – a claim unsupported by evidence and dismissed by international observers and South Africa’s own leadership.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said, ‘If it’s a genocide, that’s terrible. And I happen to believe it could very well be. South Africa’s out of control.’ His comments come just days before South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to visit Washington for high-level talks at the White House on 21 May.
The allegation, previously amplified by both Trump and South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, gained new momentum this week after Musk’s AI chatbot Grok bizarrely began spouting the conspiracy theory in response to unrelated user queries. Musk’s xAI company blamed the rogue responses on an ‘unauthorised modification’.
The White House has not issued an official statement addressing Trump’s recent remarks, but South African officials are preparing to use Ramaphosa’s visit to challenge what they call ‘false narratives’ and ‘harmful disinformation’, as first reported by BusinessTech.
Ramaphosa’s administration has consistently denied that White South Africans, particularly Afrikaner farmers, are under coordinated attack, pointing instead to data that shows violent crime disproportionately affects young Black males in South Africa. There is also no evidence of state-sanctioned land seizures since the end of apartheid in 1994, despite ongoing debates over land reform.
Tensions were further fuelled after the US granted refugee status to a group of White South Africans who claimed to be victims of political persecution — a move Pretoria has strongly opposed.
At the heart of the controversy is a land reform bill signed into law by Ramaphosa in late 2024, which allows the government to expropriate land in the public interest under strict constitutional safeguards. While the law mirrors eminent domain practices in many Western countries, it has been painted by some US conservatives and online influencers as a sign of looming mass land seizures.
John Steenhuisen, South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance leader and agriculture minister, called the genocide talk ‘dangerous nonsense’, urging Americans to ‘separate fact from fiction’.
‘This hysteria about White genocide and mass expropriations is pure fiction. It distracts from real issues both our countries face,’ Steenhuisen told reporters during a visit to the Free State’s farming regions.
Meanwhile, Trade Minister Parks Tau is working behind the scenes to finalise a trade proposal aimed at preventing new US tariffs that could hurt South Africa’s exports. Talks are expected to cover trade, investment, and regional stability — but Ramaphosa will also face the daunting task of correcting misinformation spreading rapidly through both political circles and social media platforms.
With Trump’s rhetoric heating up and Musk’s AI inadvertently fanning the flames, the Ramaphosa-Trump meeting could be one of the most politically charged diplomatic encounters in recent years.
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