Worldview: Trump's false "white genocide" claims spark outrage in South Africa meeting

Key topics:Trump confronts Ramaphosa with inflammatory white farmer claimsSouth Africa firmly denies genocide, cites official crime dataExperts warn Trump’s rhetoric fuels racial misinformation globally.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Kerry Lanaghan.In a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2025, US President Donald Trump reignited a controversial and widely debunked narrative, accusing South Africa of committing genocide against its white minority, particularly targeting white farmers through violence and land seizures. Trump's claims, accompanied by a video he presented to Ramaphosa showing alleged graves of white farmers, have drawn criticism for their lack of factual basis and reliance on inflammatory rhetoric.Ramaphosa and South African officials strongly denied the allegations, asserting that the video was unauthenticated and misrepresented the country’s reality. South Africa has long struggled with violent crime. Still, the notion of a racially motivated campaign of murder against white farmers has repeatedly been discredited by independent investigations, researchers, and even the country’s courts. According to official statistics, while South Africa recorded around 27,000 murders last year, only 32 of these were linked to farm attacks, and not all victims were white. This is in contrast to the widespread belief in far-right and white nationalist circles that white farmers are uniquely and disproportionately targeted.The article highlights that the concept of a "white genocide" in South Africa has been propagated by alt-right groups, especially in the United States and Europe, and was previously elevated by Trump during his presidency in 2018. These claims have no endorsement from mainstream political parties in South Africa, including those representing white interests, and the South African High Court has explicitly dismissed the idea of a genocide as "imagined."On the issue of land seizures, the article notes that South Africa has yet to confiscate any white-owned farms since the end of apartheid in 1994. Although the country has enacted legislation allowing land expropriation without compensation, such moves are subject to judicial oversight and have not yet led to enforced seizures. Despite comprising only 7% of the population, white South Africans own most rural land.The article concludes by emphasising that while South Africa does face serious challenges related to crime and inequality, Trump’s narrative lacks factual support and risks inflaming racial tensions based on misinformation. His claims, particularly in the context of a high-profile diplomatic meeting, have reignited concerns about the use of racially charged misinformation for political gain.(This article is a précis of a piece originally published in The Times and can be read in full here.)

Worldview: Trump's false "white genocide" claims spark outrage in South Africa meeting

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