South Africa’s president heads to the White House. Can he charm Trump?

JOHANNESBURG — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to meet Donald Trump at the White House today, in an attempt to reset relations between the two countries after the U.S. president’s continuous attacks on his government.

The U.S. administration has repeatedly slammed Pretoria for what it falsely claims is the systematic persecution of white Afrikaner farmers — and the South African side has repeatedly tried to correct Washington.

To no avail. The list of the Trump administration’s grievances with South Africa are any diplomat’s nightmare. Trump cut aid to the country in February, his top officials have snubbed G20 events South Africa is hosting this year and the U.S. expelled South Africa’s ambassador. The U.S. administration is also angry that Pretoria — a firm Palestinian ally — has taken Israel to the International Court of Justice in the Hague over its war in Gaza.

Many South Africans will be watching today’s meeting anxiously, especially after Trump’s televised hostility towards Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office earlier this year made headlines around the world.

Ramaphosa wants to use the meeting to set Trump straight regarding race relations in South Africa — Trump has repeated a rightwing conspiracy theory that there is a “white genocide” happening in the country — and his government’s policies.

Will Trump listen this time? Pretoria has to try, because a vital free trade agreement hangs in the balance amid other economic concerns.

Nelson Mandela’s lead negotiator

Ramaphosa is a seasoned diplomat who played a pivotal role as one of the lead negotiators in the talks that ended apartheid and led to the historic election of Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first Black president. Earlier this year, the South African leader tried to charm Trump by offering his fellow avid-golfer a turn on the green at the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.

However, Ramaphosa wasn’t able to hide his frustration after 59 white Afrikaans South Africans who were granted refugee status by the Trump administration arrived in the U.S. last week.

Ramaphosa said given that there is no persecution of the minority group, the Afrikaners who left for the U.S. were simply white people who didn’t want to live under Black majority rule.

“We’re the only country on the continent where the colonizers came to stay and we have never driven them out of our country,” he pointed out, after Trump repeated a right-wing conspiracy theory that there is a “genocide” of whites happening in South Africa.

Both Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have accused the government of doing “terrible things” and expropriating white-owned land without compensation — something that has not happened.

On Tuesday, in an appearance in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio was grilled by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., on why Afrikaners had been granted refugee status when Afghans, Uyghurs and others were still banned from entering the U.S.

Rubio repeated the administration’s unsubstantiated claims: “They live in a country where farms are taken and land is taken on a racial basis.”

Elon Musk — the homegrown critic

Trump’s South African-born adviser Elon Musk has also been highly critical of South Africa’s government. He has slammed the country’s affirmative action laws, which he says prevent his Starlink satellite company from entering the market. On Tuesday, reports suggested that Ramaphosa might offer the Tesla billionaire some kind of deal ahead of his White House meeting.

Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen, who is white and is part of the South African delegation, said he would be focusing on “securing trade relations…Preferential trade agreements…contribute significantly to our economy. Losing these benefits would be disastrous.”

It’s possible the South Africans will take a transactional tack at the meeting; the country is rich in minerals like platinum and Washington might see the benefit in countering China’s interests in the country.

A sanguine South African public

The upcoming Washington meeting has been dominating South African media, with local newspaper The Sunday Times running a headline over the weekend reading “Into the Mouth of Trump Hell.” A sketch by acclaimed South African political cartoonist, Zapiro, showed a nervous-looking Ramaphosa heading into the “White Supremacy House”.

On the streets of Johannesburg this week, NPR spoke to South Africans of all races who said they wished Ramaphosa well.

“Absolutely no white genocide is happening,” said 36-year-old white South African Jovana Korac. In fact, she said, “the whole world is absolutely horrified by what’s happening in America — from civil rights to women’s rights.”

Asked what Ramaphosa should tell Trump, Siya Ralo, a 42-year-old Black barista, was blunt, saying: “to stay away from South African affairs.”

Asked if he’s concerned Ramaphosa could be given the same treatment as Zelenskky, Ralo said “I hope it doesn’t happen and I know that Ramaphposa is a great strategist and he’s got backbone. I believe he will earn Trump’s respect.”

Another cafe-goer, Ernest Motsi, a 29-year-old fashion designer, told NPR that Ramaphosa should try “find common ground” with Trump if he could, but if not “we are a very resilient people, whatever backlash we’ll get from the U.S., we will survive.”

If all else fails, there’s always that round of golf.