South Africa's Ramaphosa heads to US to ease tensions with Trump

S'thembile Cele, Bloomberg News on May 14, 2025

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa plans to hold talks with his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Washington on May 21 and hopes to ease a simmering diplomatic row between the two nations.

Ramaphosa, who will embark on a working visit to the U.S. from May 19-22, will meet Trump at the White House “to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of interest,” South Africa’s Presidency said in a statement Wednesday. His “visit to the U.S. provides a platform to reset the strategic relationship between the two countries,” it said.

Since starting his second term in January, Trump has accused South Africa of orchestrating a genocide against White Afrikaner farmers and seizing their land, allegations echoed by his Pretoria-born billionaire backer Elon Musk.

Washington has frozen most aid to the nation, imposed tariffs on its exports and expelled its ambassador, while offering members of all minority groups refugee status, with a first group arriving in the U.S. on a charter flight this week.

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. Ramaphosa has repeatedly denied that any group is being persecuted and insisted that property can only be taken in the public interest and within the confines of the constitution.

The U.S. is South Africa’s largest trading partner after China, and more than 600 American companies do business in Africa’s most industrialized economy. With the nation’s preferential access to U.S. markers under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act effectively terminated, officials in Pretoria have been working to put together a new trade deal to present to Trump.

Relations between the two nations have also soured because of Pretoria’s decision to file a case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel, a close American ally, of committing a genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and its close ties with Iran.

The standoff has cast a shadow over South Africa’s presidency of the Group of 20, with Trump shunning meetings of the bloc and rejecting calls for it to focus on addressing issues such reducing developing nations’ debt and climate change.

The South African government’s initial intention was for Ramaphosa to hold bilateral talks with Trump on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting that is scheduled to take place in Canada on June 15, but the gathering was fast-tracked, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to comment. The two men have spoken by phone twice since Trump won reelection.

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