South African leader delivers a new 'playbook' on how to deal with Trump: analysis

U.S. President Donald Trump meets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

U.S. President Donald Trump meets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Adam Lynch
May 22, 2025 | 12:12PM ETMSN UK

ABC News reports South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa may have taken to heart two surprise White House “maulings” of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and King Abdullah of Jordan when he visited the Oval Office this week.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelenskyy for getting invaded by his bigger Russian neighbor. And Trump’s February 11 meeting with King Abdullah II likewise startled members of the of the Arab community, who were alarmed as Trump “ramble[d] on about how the United States will grab and develop the Gaza Strip and send its two million Palestinians to Egypt, Jordan, and other lands.”

Axios now describes the Oval Office as “a danger zone for world leaders” who can expect a former national ally to try to dress them down with “premedicated humiliation” in front of cameras.

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So, when it came Ramaphosa’s turn in the pit, NBC News reports he “seemed unsurprised when Trump ambushed him … with a screening of news clips alleging that white farmers are victims of a genocide in South Africa.”

Most experts — and even previously, Trump himself — agree that the “white genocide” in South Africa is a myth, that violence upon white farmers appears to be more closely linked to economics and opportunism than race. Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader and an ally of apartheid opponent Nelson Mandela, appeared prepared for debate when the lights came back on.

“I’d like to know where that is,” he told Trump, referring to the president’s claim of mass graves of white South African murder victims, “because this I’ve never seen.”

When asked by a reporter what would take to convince Trump he was wrong about his accusations, Ramaphosa said: “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends.”

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NBC News Senior Reporter Alexander Smith says Ramaphosa "spoke calmly and without interruption, politely but firmly disagreeing with Trump."

He’d even brought with him white South African Hall of Fame golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and gestured to them in answer.

“If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these … gentlemen would not be here,” he said.

In the same meeting, South African agriculture minister John Steenhuisen, who is white, told Trump that two individuals in Trump’s video are actually leaders of an “opposition minority party.”

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“The reason my party … chose to join hands with Mr. Ramaphosa’s party was precisely to keep those people out of power,” Steenhuisen said. “… We cannot have those people sitting in union buildings, making decisions.”

With his preparation and his calm demeanor, Scott Lucas, a politics professor at Ireland’s University College Dublin said: “Leaders around the world now have a playbook for how they deal with Trump.”

Read the full NBC News report here.