59 non-farmers later…

Yesterday morning, the president of South Africa arrived at the White House in an attempt to find common ground and establish trade relationships with President Trump. A meeting that started well, turned disrespectful in a matter of seconds. For days, Trump has been rounding up the nation in support of bringing over white Afrikaner farmers who were, according to Trump, being murdered and having their land stolen. As President Cyril Ramaphosa tried to intervene and correct the false rhetoric, President Trump continuously talked over him, speaking louder to drown him out.

When a reporter posed the question to Trump, “What will it take to convince you there is no genocide in South Africa,” President Ramaphosa answered, saying it would take “Trump listening to the people of South Africa” like a few of his South African golfer friends who were present. Cutting a reporter off with a follow-up question, Trump instead asked for the lights lowered and a video to be played. Although the footage portrayed South African opposition politician Julius Malema chanting a song calling for violence against white farmers, it was from 2020. The burial site shown on the video marked with crosses that Trump swore were of slain farmers was a memorial, and the documents he tried to present of farmers being killed were in The Congo, not South Africa.

At this point, it became a circus. A reporter brings up a question regarding the luxury jet given to him by Qatar, prompting him to go completely off the rails, asking the reporter what the question has to do with the South African genocide, calling him a terrible reporter. It’s always amazing when he shows how much he can dish but can’t take. Meanwhile, President Ramaphosa is composed, classy, demure, and amused by the entertainment. Yes sir, we are just as much a mess as we appear to be. When a reporter asked when he would go see for himself, he dismissively replied, “Well, I can go” as he continued to flip papers documenting other nation’s killings.

So now, let’s speak the truth. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee their home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution, war, or violence. None of that is happening in this scenario. Out of the 20,000+ murders in South Africa in 2024, 44 were linked to farming communities. And although South Africa is one of the most violent nations in the world, the majority of those killed are black. So understand that, while he is on a rampage deporting people of color, he is laying the red carpet for Afrikaners, including giving them an expedited pathway to citizenship. Must be nice.

For the South African citizens who feared this meeting may end up just like the catastrophic one earlier this year between Trump and Ukrainian President Vladamir Zelensky, they were right. President Ramaphosa was poised, articulate and ready to speak to any issue while Trump was unaccepting, brash and forceful. Instead of revitalizing the broken relationship between two countries, which the meeting was for, we watched a waste of time and a one-sided conversation that could’ve been a phone call. And now we’re home to 59 Afrikaners who refuse to live under a government now ruling in favor of their black citizens.

The recently passed Expropriation Act, which allows the South African government to, in exceptional circumstances, take land for public use without compensation, is what this is about. This Act is aimed at rectifying apartheid injustices, as Black South Africans who make up more than 80 percent of the population still own just 4 percent of the land. And although this law hasn’t proceeded to take any land yet, South Afrikaners are landing here in the US just in case it does.

So although we are a deeply divided nation battling sickness, disease, expensive and inaccessible healthcare along with increasingly processed and unhealthy food, welcome to The United States.