Agenda is expected to include alleged genocide of Afrikaners, trade and tariffs, critical minerals, and Pretoria’s alliances with opponents of America.
JOHANNESBURG—The leaders of Africa’s largest, most industrialized economy and the world’s greatest superpower are set to meet at the White House on Wednesday with relations between the two apparently at an all-time low.
With the South African government firmly in the camp of America’s primary geopolitical foes and accused by U.S. President Donald Trump of racially persecuting white Afrikaners, one international relations analyst said the “potential for flashpoints is ultra-high.”
Officials close to President Cyril Ramaphosa said he’s set to push for a new trade deal with Washington, with enhanced United States access to the country’s wealth of critical minerals and precious metals a “real possibility.”
But first, they said, the man credited with negotiating with apartheid’s overlords to end white minority rule in South Africa in the early 1990s will “do his best” to convince Trump there’s no “white genocide” happening in the country, as the U.S. leader has alleged on several occasions.
“If Ramaphosa manages to repair the completely broken relationship between South Africa and the United States, it will be his biggest achievement since he helped to set South Africa on the path of democracy,” said professor Susan Booysen, director of research at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, a South African think-tank.
“It’s far from an easy task, and it won’t happen over a period of days, but if there’s anyone capable of succeeding, of restoring mutual respect, it’s Cyril Ramaphosa,” she told The Epoch Times.
Yet South Africa, said Steven Friedman, professor of the Center for the Study of Democracy in Johannesburg, represents the antithesis of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) agenda.
“South Africa entrenches some of the world’s strongest rights for members of the LGBT community. It’s pro-abortion. It promotes affirmative action and black economic empowerment,” Friedman told The Epoch Times.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, criticized by Trump and his top officials as discriminatory, are front and center in South Africa’s liberal constitution.
In early February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a G20 meeting in Johannesburg, writing in a post on X:
“South Africa is doing very bad things … Using G20 to promote ’solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
However, should Trump “call Cyril out on this or anything else,” said Friedman, he doesn’t expect the South African president to flinch.
