Ambush or adult conversation – what awaits Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House?

President Cyril Ramaphosa will have a high-stakes encounter with President Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday, 21 May, which could either reset South Africa’s dreadful relations with the US – or could become a disastrous Zelensky-style ambush.

Read more: Trump says Ramaphosa will visit him next week

It’s a big gamble for Ramaphosa, but one he clearly feels he has to take to try to rescue relations that could hardly plunge any lower. As his office announced the visit on 14 May, unconfirmed reports emerged from Washington that the US would be pulling out entirely from the G20, which South Africa is organising this year (culminating in a summit in Johannesburg in November). 

Speaking to reporters on 15 May, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the government had not yet received any official communication that the US would suspend its work on South Africa’s G20. 

Some fear Rama­­­phosa could be on a suicide mission and that he will be attacked before the cameras in the White House by Trump and his team – as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ambushed by them when he visited on 28 February. One ambassador to Pretoria told Daily Maverick that he feared the meeting would just give Trump the opportunity to repeat his views about the Afrikaner “refugees”  with “the President sitting next to him”.

Read more: Ambush! A mugging in the Oval Office reveals the alliance’s deep split

He was referring to Trump’s press conference on 12 May, when he announced Ramaphosa’s visit while he was justifying granting asylum to 59 white Afrikaners because a “genocide” was taking place against them in South Africa and also because, he claimed, their land was being seized.

Ntshavheni was optimistic about the meeting, telling reporters: “We are not worried.” She confirmed that Trump had invited Ramaphosa and said the government was “confident that the invitation came from a good place”, with the intention to engage and clarify.  “We expect very cordial discussions, and as I’ve said previously, it doesn’t mean there will not be differences,” she said. 

Ntshavheni added that no one “invites a guest to mistreat them, so we are expecting the highest level of decorum and necessary protocols to be afforded”.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwen­ya, expects a “robust” meeting, but insists Ramaphosa will not back down on his assertion that no genocide is happening in South Africa. 

Ramaphosa will enter the White House armed with a comprehensive trade deal, which he hopes will mollify the transactional Trump. Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau, Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen and International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola have prepared a trade package “that traverses a variety of fields, including agriculture, gas, automotive, minerals and reciprocals”, one informed source said.

The deal will emphasise reciprocal trade, giving the US greater access to the South African market, to replace the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which gives the country duty-free access to the US market for most of its exports without requiring it to reciprocate. 

South African officials have conceded that the country’s Agoa privileges are likely to end soon. 

One official said he hoped this would be enough to forestall disaster. “A lot of pre-prep has gone into this meeting so we can avoid a Zelensky,” he said. 

But Michelle Gavin, senior fellow for Africa policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, thought “the Trump-Ramaphosa meeting may veer into the surreal, as the US administration’s approach to South Africa has leaned heavily on falsehoods about an ongoing genocide in the country”. 

“There are significant and important foreign policy disagreements between the US and South Africa to discuss, and imperilled commercial ties that merit attention, but the sound and fury coming from the White House may obscure that substantive agenda,” Gavin said.

Anthony Carroll, non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was more optimistic. He said he believed Ramaphosa could bear some gifts such as reciprocal market access – and not rise to the bait.

“On the issue of land seizures, he could offer that there is scant evidence of such acts and that although crime is an admitted problem, data does not show that white farmers are being singled out. 

Illustrative image. US President Donald Trump (left) and President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photos: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE and Gallo Images)