South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has denounced former US President Donald Trump's policy of granting refugee status to Afrikaners as "racist," characterizing it as "truly uninformed." In an interview with The New York Times, Ramaphosa recalled last year's Oval Office meeting where Trump allegedly turned down the lights and played a video falsely claiming a "white genocide" in South Africa, describing the incident as a "spectacle" and an "ambush."

Ramaphosa stated: "I just thought that he is so uninformed, truly uninformed. I realized that he is looking at South Africa through a completely, sort of, foggy lens, without realizing the real, real harm that apartheid did. In my view, he was just dismissive." President Trump has targeted South Africa since starting his second term in office in January 2025, spreading false allegations that the country's white minority are undergoing a "genocide" and that their land is being seized by the government.

In May, the US regime extended refugee status to Afrikaners – who once led the repressive minority apartheid government and remain on average many times wealthier than Black South Africans – while slashing its refugee program for people fleeing war and persecution. Trump refused to attend the G20 leaders' meetings in Johannesburg in November and has banned South Africa from attending the US-hosted gathering in Miami later this year.

Ramaphosa said: "I do think the Afrikaner policy is racist. It is that racist sort of demeanour that we want to be able to whittle down so that he can see the truth of the situation." The White House, in a statement to The New York Times, claimed that Trump was calling attention to "the harrowing stories of Afrikaners," adding: "The South African government, at minimum, does not respond, but President Trump has a humanitarian heart. He will continue to speak the truth about these injustices."

Ramaphosa countered: "There's no white genocide and there is no grabbing of land, of white people's land. And white farmers are not being driven out of the country and badly treated." The South African president, who is due to step down as head of the African National Congress party next year and as the country's leader in 2029, was unusually forthright about Trump. He remarked: "We are rather amazed at the attention he gives to us. We are a small country, and we are no threat to the United States."

Source: www.theguardian.com