President Donald Trump’s attempt to demonstrate evidence of “white genocide” in South Africa fell flat after he used pictures from an entirely different country to support his claims.
Trump met with South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, in the Oval Office on Wednesday in an effort to “reset” foreign relations.
The meeting took a bizarre turn when Trump produced an array of articles and showed video footage alleging ethnic cleansing in South Africa.
At one stage, Trump flipped to a printout of a blog post from The American Thinker titled “Let’s talk about Africa, which is where tribalism takes you.”
The featured image on the article, which was taken from a months-old video on 7 February, showed Red Cross aid workers at a scene in the city of Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a mass rape and murder incident had occured.
“Look, here are burial sites all over the place. These are all white farmers that are being buried,” the president falsely claimed while holding up the piece to reporters.
Trump continued to flick through pages, citing “thousands of stories” about the “death, death, death” of white South African farmers from an array of media sites, which the White House cited Wednesday.
In a separate video, which Trump ordered his staffers to play for Ramaphosa, South African politicians were heard inciting racist violence against white South Africans, “Go after the white man!” one man was heard shouting to crowds in the clip.
Speaking about the video, Ramaphosa said the small minority party featured in the video spouts opposing views to the majority held by the South African parliament, “which is allowed to exist in terms of our constitution”.
Trump interjected, saying: “But you do allow them to take land. You do allow them to take land. And then, when they take the land, they kill the white farmer. And when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”
The notion of a “white genocide” in the country has been supported by Trump allies Elon Musk and Stephen Miller in recent times, having long been a rallying cry for white supremacists worldwide.
Ramaphosa later expressed his belief that Trump is unconvinced by the allegations of “white genocide” in a briefing with reporters.
“When he was asked by one of you – and thank God one of you asked – whether he was convinced that there was genocide, he says no, he’s not convinced. Much as he flighted the video and all those press clippings, in the end I do believe that there’s doubt and disbelief in his head about all this,” the president said.
Ramaphosa also admitted in the fallout of the meeting that his delegation “could have been better briefed”, reported News24.
The meeting followed the recent arrival of a group of 59 white South Africans, who were granted asylum in the U.S., after Trump deemed them victims of racial discrimination in their home nation.
In another video showing an aerial pan of roadside graves in South Africa, which was shared weeks before by Musk on X, Trump pointed at the footage, saying, “Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites.
“Over 1,000 white farmers,” Trump claimed, without any concrete evidence.
Trump continued, “Those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross, and there’s approximately 1,000 of them. They’re all white farmers. The family of white farmers.”
“It’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he added.
There is no official evidence of a “white genocide” taking place in South Africa, despite Trump’s claims.
The Independent contacted the White House for comment.
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