By John Helmer
@bears_with
In their hour-long Oval Office meeting on May 22, President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked South African (SA) President Cyril Ramaphosa. This is the longest, continuous face-to-face verbal assault on a foreign head of state in recent Trump history.
As the lead image shows, Ramaphosa and the state ministers sitting at his right are black. Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are white. “It was a full-on ambush,” observes a black American source, “and an attempt to make the South African delegation, Ramaphosa in particular, look small.”
“In an extraordinary scene clearly orchestrated by the White House for maximum effect and reminiscent of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s US visit in February,” responded a former US Ambassador to South Africa (2013-2016) Patrick Gaspard, “Trump confronted Ramaphosa with false claims of genocide against SA whites, including allegations of mass killings and land seizures…Trump had turned the meeting with Ramaphosa into a shameful spectacle and savaged him with some fake snuff film and violent rhetoric. Engaging on Trump’s terms never goes well for anyone.”
Gaspard added: “Bizarrely, Trump has cued some video of a political rally of a minor Party in SA of Julius Malema and others going on about land seizures in South Africa as if that’s ‘evidence’ of a ‘genocide’. Just bizarre. And Cyril is doing all he can to maintain his composure and dignity.” “Pretty extraordinary to see billionaire Johan Rupert pleading Trump for some deal for Elon Musk and Starlink to come ‘save’ South Africa. I think that this grift from Musk lies at the heart of this entire performance.”
The Russian reaction came in the Kremlin-backed security analysis internet publication, Vzglyad. The writer is Yevgeny Krutikov, a former GRU field officer and Russian strategy analyst who is an expert on Russian policy in Africa; he is white and speaks Afrikaans.
“Ramaphosa is the exact opposite of Zelensky in terms of human qualities. He is smiling and funny… he has a wonderful sense of humour which gives him a charm that is unexpected. This even affected Trump, who apparently counted on conflict in the conversation, while Ramaphosa constantly joked, laughed, and smiled even where it was difficult to do so; for example, on the issue of ‘genocide of whites’ and the murders of farmers…Apparently, this attitude was planned in advance by the South African delegation with all its Soviet experience of former underground fighters…the whole show ended in a draw… Cyril Ramaphosa really wants to bring South Africa onto the big political stage, including by participating in the negotiation process on Ukraine. For South Africa, his visit to Washington was not only an attempt to restore and reset economic relations with the United States, but also to establish himself as another source of diplomatic efforts. And, despite the elements of the show program, he succeeded. This is a very positive sign for Russia, as South Africa is not only our traditional partner and ally, but also another independent vector of power that Trump’s typical pressure failed to break.”
Watch the Oval Office session posted by the White House here. It ended with Ramaphosa quipping to Trump about the press: “they like you so much.” Read the full transcript.
Read the analysis by Krutikov in yesterday’s edition of Vzglyad. The Russian original has been translated verbatim into English without editing. Links, illustrations and captions have been added for clarification.
Click for Russian: https://vz.ru/world/2025/5/22/1333802.html
May 22, 2025
The South African president showed his difference from
Zelensky at the White House
By Yevgeny Krutikov
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s visit to Washington almost turned into a farce like what happened to Vladimir Zelensky at the White House. But unlike Zelensky, Ramaphosa had thoroughly prepared for the visit to the White House. By itself, this visit itself has demonstrated the increased role of South Africa in world politics and it has proved to be very constructive for Russia.
During Ramaphosa’s visit, Trump chose the same tactics as he had earlier at the meeting with Zelensky. He interrupted Ramaphosa, pressed him, did not let him finish his sentences, and at some point turned on multimedia resources — a clip appeared on the TV screen in the Oval Office in which the leader of the South African leftist EEF [Economic Freedom Fighters] party, Julius Malema, sings the famous xenophobic song “Kill the Boer!”
But Cyril Ramaphosa is a seasoned fighter — he was in solitary confinement during the apartheid era — and did not play the provincial KVN [popular Soviet comedy show] character. Artistically, Ramaphosa pretended that he was seeing and hearing all this for the first time.
Then they turned on the second video: a thousand white crosses taken from a helicopter, forming one large cross visible from space, the Witkruis monument, an installation in Limpopo province dedicated to the white Boer farmers who have died since 1993. Ramaphosa stared intently at the screen. He was uncomfortable, but he held his punch.
Then Trump began to show reporters colour-printed information about the dead Boers. Then he asked the head of South Africa: “This man who sang ‘Kill the white man!’ and then danced –why didn’t you arrest him?” Ramaphosa replied: “Oh yeah… We are totally against it.”
He did not explain that the Johannesburg Equality Court ruled in 2022 [then the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2024 ] that the performance of the song “Kill the Boer!”, which became popular in the 1990s, was not considered an act of inciting ethnic hatred. Ramaphosa’s defence tactics against Trump’s pressure were different. The head of South Africa tried to tell us that South Africa is a democratic multiparty state, the government of South Africa is against violence, but within the framework of democracy and universal suffrage there are such types as [Julius] Malema and his Economic Freedom Fighters, and we cannot forbid them to sing all this. Because of democracy and freedom.
It was much more difficult with what Trump and Musk call the “genocide of the white population.” At the same time, we are talking not only about the purely physical killings of Boers, but also about legislative acts, including those adopted during Ramaphosa’s term in office, on the confiscation of white farmers’ lands with so-called “zero compensation.” Nevertheless, Ramaphosa withstood this blow and offered to “talk about it calmly.”
I must say that Ramaphosa is the exact opposite of Zelensky in terms of human qualities. He is smiling and funny like a sincere youngster; he has a wonderful sense of humor, which gives him a charm that is unexpected.
This even affected Trump, who apparently counted on conflict in the conversation, while Ramaphosa constantly joked, laughed, and smiled even where it was difficult to do so, for example, on the issue of “genocide of whites” and the murders of farmers.
Apparently, this attitude was planned in advance by the South African delegation with all its Soviet-era experience of former underground fighters. “President Ramaphosa did not come here for a TV show, he came to seriously discuss with President Trump how we can reset the strategic relationship between South Africa and the United States,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman Vincent Magwenya told the South African television channel Newsroom Africa.
SA Presidency spokesman Vincent Magwenya briefing the press in Washington.
The conversation was turned into a constructive channel by the richest man in South Africa — the second in Africa after the Nigerian Aliko Dangote – the multi–billionaire Johann Rupert, a white Boer, close friend of Trump and owner of Cartier, Montblanc, Dunhill and other luxury goods brands. He recalled the idea of using Elon Musk’s Starlink to improve infrastructure and quality of life in rural South Africa.
Many observers reacted humorously to the appearance of white celebrity golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen in the South African delegation. At first glance, it seemed that Ramaphosa wanted to demonstrate to Trump, a golf fan, that whites in South Africa were not being harassed. Although something went wrong here, and Goosen, nicknamed “The Ice Man”, who was melancholic to the point of autism — he was struck by lightning at the age of 18, which his Boer parents considered a sign from God, although Retief has since stopped showing any emotions — began to tell how his neighbours on the farms had suffered. “They’re burning down our farms” – this sounded unexpected. [Min 54-56 ]
But the white golfers in the Oval Office were not just the backdrop for a production about “successful whites in South Africa.” Golfers should not be underestimated at all. And specifically, these golfers are the right golfers. Or rather, Johan Rupert.
Rupert has known Trump since 1996, and they came together, by the way, on the basis of golf. At the same time, Rupert introduced Trump to Ernie Els, who was just rising to the top of world golf at the time. They often played the three of them – Trump, Rupert and Ernie Els.
In the Oval Office, left to right: Johann Rupert, Retief Goosen, Ernie Els.
Playing golf together, Trump and Els.
In March 2024 — that is, a few months before Donald Trump was elected President of the United States — Rupert and Els stopped by his Mar-a-Lago estate to convince the future president in advance to preserve the so-called African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which expires this September. If Congress does not extend the AGOA at Trump’s suggestion, this will lead to the termination of duty-free access to the US market for many African goods, in particular citrus fruits, cocoa beans, nuts and cars. And it’s not just South Africa that is concerned about this prospect. It’s just that Pretoria can serve as the locomotive for the whole of Black Africa, as, with the required reservations, it is the most successful state on the continent.
About a month ago, Ernie Els played golf with Trump again. Johan Rupert told the world that it was golfer Ernie Els who, during that game at Mar-a-Lago, convinced President Trump to agree to a meeting with Ramaphosa, despite the fact that the ambassador and military attaché of South Africa were expelled from the United States, and a whole planeload of Boer migrants speaking of “racial discrimination” was defiantly received in Washington. At the same time, the “civil servant” Elon Musk has methodically destroyed his historical homeland for improper behavior in all his social networks.
So golf is as much a political force as ice hockey. In some places, it is even stronger.
But there are problems with Musk’s Starlink. The fact is that in South Africa there is a law “on economic identity”, according to which in all companies, regardless of their field of activity and the origin of their capital, 30% of the assets must belong to the indigenous population, the so-called “non-white investors”. Even giants like De Beers have to obey this — to create front companies for blacks and hire a third of the black staff in the offices outside the position of a cleaner.
But the Boers also consider themselves to be an indigenous people of South Africa. Dit ons is Suid Afrika!, “We are South Africa!” is now the main slogan of the white political movement in South Africa, which is why such laws are called racist by the Boers. And Musk doesn’t like everything in this story, because the laws on economic preferences in South Africa are not only questionable from the point of view of racial equality, but also economically ineffective. For Musk, they are akin to the old quotas in the United States for LGBT employees (banned in Russia) and other minorities, which prevent talented and more efficient people from advancing in their careers.
In addition, during the tenure of the previous president Jacob Zuma, racial corruption flourished on this basis: entrepreneurs of Indian origin began to play a special role, since Indians are not considered white according to local racial laws. They are “coloured,” so they are also eligible for a 30 percent quota. And Musk is for fighting corruption and maximizing business efficiency.
But Ramaphosa was reasonably counting on the help of Johann Rupert and his golfers. “Trade relations are the most important thing, that’s why we’re here. We want to get a really good trade deal in the United States,” Ramaphosa told South African reporters in the United States.
And when the whole show ended in a draw, they started talking about the main thing. Trump has spoken out in favour of Russia’s return to the G8, but has not yet said anything about whether he will come to Johannesburg in November for the G20 summit, although Ramaphosa is still “hopeful.” Secretary of State Mark Rubio claims that the United States is not satisfied with the summit itself, but with its agenda, which Washington is “not interested in.”
On the issue of Ukraine, the South African president quoted [President Nelson] Mandela as saying that all conflicts should be resolved through diplomacy. And Trump asked about Zelensky: “What the hell was he doing in South Africa?” when he called him. Ramaphosa laughed again, contagiously.
Cyril Ramaphosa really wants to bring South Africa onto the big political stage, including by participating in the negotiation process on Ukraine. For South Africa, his visit to Washington was not only an attempt to restore and reset economic relations with the United States, but also to establish himself as another source of diplomatic efforts. And, despite the elements of the show program, he succeeded.
This is a very positive sign for Russia, as South Africa is not only our traditional partner and ally, but also another independent vector of power that Trump’s typical pressure failed to break.
The fact that there are many influential people of South African and predominantly of Boer origin in Trump’s entourage adds additional importance to everything that happened. And if Musk, as a typical expat with experience, is extremely critical of his historical homeland, then Johann Rupert is rather the opposite. And this is quite a channel of influence. Not to mention how much golf’s global role has grown in just a day.
Leave a Reply