WASHINGTON, D.C. – Former U.S. President Donald Trump stirred controversy on Wednesday during a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa by presenting a video that pushed debunked claims of a targeted campaign against white farmers in South Africa.
The 4-minute video, which has been circulating on social media, was played during the White House talks. Trump described it as evidence of a so-called “genocide” of white farmers, but multiple elements in the footage have been proven false or misleading.
One scene showed white crosses along a rural road, which Trump claimed were grave markers for murdered farmers. In reality, the footage was from a 2020 protest in Normandien after a farming couple was killed. The crosses were symbolic and not actual burial sites. The perpetrators were later sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022.
Trump also pointed to a man in the video making comments about land occupation, calling him a government official. However, the speaker was Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), a radical opposition party with no governing authority. The EFF secured only 9.5 percent of votes in the last general election.
Another segment featured Malema chanting “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,” a struggle-era slogan from South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. Trump claimed it was a literal incitement to violence, but South African courts have ruled that the chant must be interpreted within its historical context and is not a direct call for murder.
Further misleading claims included a photo Trump used to suggest mass burials of white farmers. The image, actually taken from a Red Cross response in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, showed workers handling bodies after a mass jailbreak. It had no connection to South Africa or white farmers.
Trump also claimed that white farmers were being killed in large numbers, referencing blog posts and obscure websites. However, Afrikaner advocacy group AfriForum recorded 49 farm murders in 2023, a figure small compared to the broader violence in South Africa, which recorded 27,621 murders from April 2023 to March 2024. Most victims are young black men in urban settings.
The meeting, which was expected to focus on bilateral cooperation, trade, and regional security, was instead overshadowed by Trump’s use of discredited material. The South African presidency has yet to issue a formal response, though the episode has sparked criticism from analysts who say the former U.S. leader misused inflammatory narratives that distort South Africa’s complex post-apartheid challenges.
