South Africa’s Ramaphosa meets Trump for first time since diplomatic feud

By Nimi Princewill, CNN

(CNN) — South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is holding crucial talks at the White House with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday in a high-stakes meeting that could improve or deteriorate already frosty relations between the nations.

Ramaphosa is hopeful his visit could end a diplomatic feud that sparked aid cancellations by Trump and fueled the expulsion of his nation’s ambassador to the US – but some in his country fear the meeting could go off the rails, as it did for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the notorious Oval Office encounter in February.

There are also fears that the African nation could now potentially lose some of its US trade privileges as relations between the two countries sour.

Ramaphosa’s trip comes just over a week after a group of 59 White South Africans arrived in the US after being granted refugee status.

Trump and his ally Elon Musk, who was born and raised in the country, claimed the South Africans were being persecuted back home. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was in the US national interest to prioritize White South Africans for refugee resettlement, telling a hearing that they’re “a small subset” who “are easier to vet.”

Rubio did not rule out that their race is a factor in the resettlement but argued that they are being “persecuted” for being White.

The Trump administration has sharply criticized an expropriation law, which was enacted in South Africa earlier this year, in an attempt to reverse historic racial inequalities. The law empowers South Africa’s government to take land and redistribute it – with no obligation to pay compensation in some instances – if the seizure is found to be “just and equitable and in the public interest.”

During a discriminatory apartheid government that ended in the mid-1990s, Black South Africans were forcibly dispossessed of their lands for the benefit of Whites. Today, some three decades after the end of apartheid, Blacks, who comprise over 80% of the country’s population of 63 million, own around 4% of private land.

Trump claimed that lands belonging to minority Whites, who own 72% of the nation’s agricultural land, were being targeted for confiscation, and cited unverified claims that “a genocide is taking place” in South Africa. He added that “White farmers are being brutally killed” amidreports of farm attacks.

South African authorities have pushed back hard against those claims with police minister Senzo Mchunu saying there was no evidence of a “White genocide” in the country.

In a statement in February, the South African Police Service urged the public “to desist from assumptions that belong to the past, where farm murders are the same as murders of white farmers.”

Trump also disapproves of South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice against the US ally Israel.

Ramaphosa’s office said he would “discuss bilateral, regional and global issues of interest” with the US president at the White House. Analysts say the meeting could pose a tipping point for their fraught ties.

The US is South Africa’s second-largest trading partner, and the African nation benefits the most from a US trade agreement that provides preferential duty-free access to US markets for eligible sub-Saharan African nations.

Under that agreement, South Africa is the main agricultural exporter and exports two-thirds of its agricultural goods to the US, tariff-free. But some US lawmakers want those benefits withdrawn when the trade agreement is reviewed this year.

‘A tricky place to be’

South African researcher Neo Letswalo describes the anticipated meeting as “make-or-break” and one that requires “supreme negotiation tactics” by Ramaphosa.

The South African leader is set for a tightrope walk at the White House, he added, reminiscing about a shouting match that broke out in the Oval Office between Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, and Ukraine’s Zelensky in late February.

“Drawing from Zelensky’s meeting with Donald Trump and JD Vance, we know that the Oval Office is currently or at least for the next five years, a tricky place to be,” Letswalo, a research associate at the University of Johannesburg told CNN.

He believes that “Ramaphosa would maintain his composure to iron out some of the misunderstandings that Trump’s administration officials have about South Africa.”

Other analysts, such as Christopher Afoke Isike, who is a professor of African politics and international relations at the University of Pretoria, believe that Ramaphosa can pull through, “considering the fact that he’s a businessman president like President Trump.”

Ramaphosa plans to soften the ground with a potential licensing deal for Starlink, a satellite internet service owned by Musk. His spokesman Vincent Magwenya confirmed to CNN that South Africa has had talks with Starlink about operating in the country.

The South African government said “reframing bilateral, economic and commercial relations” was the specific focus of Ramaphosa’s US visit.

“We want to come out of the United States with a really good trade deal,” Ramaphosa told reporters ahead of his meeting with Trump.

South African golfer Ernie Els is expected to visit the White House with Ramaphosa’s delegation, according to three US officials familiar with the plans. Musk is also expected to attend the White House meeting, two US officials said.

Bringing one of the most successful golfers in the world into the meeting with Trump, who is an avid golfer himself, might set a positive tone. But some US officials still predict that the meeting could turn into a “nightmare” scenario.

“It is certainly possible that we see fireworks like we saw in the Zelensky oval office meeting,” said a US official of the Wednesday meeting.

What could go wrong?

For Letswalo, the crucial talks between Trump and Ramaphosa could hit a brick wall if the White House makes costly demands.

“A dealbreaker would be a request by Washington for Pretoria to retrieve the Land Expropriation Act or Gaza Case in order to continue the US-SA relationship,” he said, adding, “it would be interesting to see how President Ramaphosa maintains the sovereignty and his statement of ‘not going to be bullied by America’, without compromising the pre-existing relationship with the US.”

That task could be one of Ramaphosa’s most challenging, according to André Duvenhage, a politics professor at South Africa’s Northwest University.

“This may be his single biggest challenge in terms of anything he had to deal with in his term as president of the Republic of South Africa.”

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kylie Atwood and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting.

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