South Africa’s Ramaphosa recalls his bemusement at Trump Oval Office encounter

CAPE TOWN - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa laughed off US President Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush, in his first direct comments since returning from the encounter with his American counterpart last week.

The lights were dimmed as Mr Ramaphosa entered an infrastructure conference in Cape Town on May 27, evoking the US president’s call to turn the lights down in the Oval Office to cue up a video montage that amplified his false claims of a white genocide in South Africa.

“When I came in, I saw the room going a bit dark,” Mr Ramaphosa told the audience. “For a moment, I wondered what is this? Is it happening to me again?”

Mr Ramaphosa visited Washington last week to persuade Mr Trump to spare South Africa from the full brunt of

his sweeping trade tariffs.

The US is the country’s second-largest trading partner after China. While the meeting between the two leaders began with pleasantries, Mr Trump surprised his visitor with the video after a few minutes.

“At that point, I was seated very nicely. I was beginning to get into a groove of interacting with this man, and I suddenly hear him say, ‘dim the lights’,” Mr Ramaphosa recalled, reliving the moment for his Cape Town audience. “Some people have said this was an ambush. I was bemused. I was there thinking, what is happening?”

The face-to-face Oval Office meeting marked the first between the leaders following months of tension, after Mr Trump froze aid to South Africa over his claims about attacks on white farmers. He has also criticised Pretoria’s genocide case against Israel – a key US ally – at the International Court of Justice.

The encounter also took place after 49 South Africans of Afrikaner descent were flown to the US on a plane charted by Washington and granted refugee status on the back of Mr Trump’s claim that white Afrikaner farmers are victims of a genocide and the state is seizing their land.

There have been no official land seizures in South Africa since apartheid ended in 1994, while police statistics show young black men bear the brunt of violent crime. 

Notwithstanding the video, Mr Ramaphosa declared the visit a success for opening a path to consider a new trade deal between the two countries. He also voiced confidence that Mr Trump will attend the Group of 20 summit in November in Johannesburg, which South Africa is hosting before it hands the leadership of the global forum to the US. BLOOMBERG