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Trump says Ramaphosa will visit him next week

Trump says Ramaphosa will visit him next week
Peter Fabricius
By Peter Fabricius
12 May 2025
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International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola says the G20 is on track, despite US objections to SA’s agenda.

President Donald Trump says President Cyril Ramaphosa will be coming to see him next week.

This crucial face-to-face meeting is likely to be tense, and the outcome critical for the future of South Africa-US relations, which have hit rock bottom.

Trump announced Ramaphosa’s visit during a press conference in Washington, which covered a wide range of subjects, including what he called the “genocide” he claimed was being conducted against white Afrikaners. This was why the US had offered them citizenship, he said. Forty-nine Afrikaner “refugees” were due to arrive in Washington on Monday afternoon, to make the US their new home.

“Now the South African leadership is coming to see me, I understand sometime next week,” Trump said. 

Earlier on Monday, International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola said at a media briefing that planning for a working visit by Ramaphosa to the US had reached a “very advanced stage”.

The meeting between the two presidents is likely to be fraught as relations have been rocked by a series of hostile executive orders and statements from Trump and his government, terminating US aid, imposing huge import tariffs, expelling SA’s ambassador to the US Ebrahim Rasool and otherwise throwing economic and political relations into turmoil. 

Read more: US funding cuts could cause over 150,000 additional HIV infections in SA by 2028 – study

Trump has attacked South Africa for a range of foreign policy decisions, mainly for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice for alleged genocide in Gaza, but also for alleged genocide against white Afrikaners. 

At the press conference on Monday, Trump was asked why he was creating an expedited path into the US for Afrikaners while he had halted virtually all refugee admissions for people suffering famine and war, like those from  Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Because they’re being killed and we don’t want to see people being killed,” he replied.

“It’s a genocide taking place,” he added, repeating accusations by his officials.

“Farmers are being killed. They happen to be white. But whether they’re white or black makes no difference to me. But white farmers are being brutally killed and their land is being confiscated in South Africa.

“And so we’ve essentially extended citizenship to those people to escape from that violence and come here.”

He said that he didn’t know how he could attend the G20 summit, which SA is hosting in Johannesburg in November, “unless that situation is taken care of”.

Read more: ‘No proof of persecution’ says Ronald Lamola as 49 Afrikaner ‘refugees’ jet off for US

As Lamola and others have explained, there is no evidence that white farmers are being singled out for murder. Trump’s accusations that their land is being confiscated have evidently been prompted by the recent passage of the Expropriation Act, which allows the government to expropriate land without compensation in some circumstances. But the Act has not so far been used.

G20 on track


Lamola indicated that another issue Ramaphosa and Trump would discuss would be a possible new trade deal with the US. Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau is preparing a trade offer, government sources have said. Lamola noted that Trump’s executive orders and tariff hikes had nullified SA’s preferential access to the US market under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). Ramaphosa’s working visit to the US would “further amplify and cement” these negotiations. 

Lamola said Ramaphosa’s recently appointed special envoy to the US Mcebisi Jonas was also addressing trade matters.

He stressed that Jonas was not a substitute SA ambassador to the US, but was navigating the terrain to prepare for the appointment of an ambassador to replace Rasool.

Concerns have also been raised that Trump and his government could disrupt SA’s hosting of the G20 this year, also because they had made it clear that they disagreed with much of SA’s G20 agenda, which is based on solidarity, equality and sustainability, all anathema to the Trump administration. 

Lamola nonetheless expressed confidence that the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg would be able to reach consensus on a declaration. He said that most of the G20 working groups that had met so far had found consensus. Asked if he expected Trump to attend, he said that was entirely up to Trump.

He noted that there had been many G20 meetings “where the US was represented at a high level.”

That included US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attending the recent meeting of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington, DC, where Lamola said Bessent had engaged with SA Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana.

“So the G20 is proceeding … and going very well.”

Read more: The US-South Africa relationship stands at a dangerous crossroads

Lamola indicated that any disagreements on the agenda would not undermine the impact that the G20 would make in the various multilateral platforms, because, “The agenda is being supported by the majority members of the G20. So we are on course to host the leader summit in November.”

SA’s G20-coordinator Masotsha Mnguni noted that the US was one of the troika of countries – with SA and Brazil – which was organising G20 events and that there had been “dynamic cooperation” in this work. He said the US had been participating in the 15 G20 working groups.

“Of course, there may be issues in some of the working groups that they may feel strongly about, but that does not in any way hinder their participation and also the contribution that they make in these meetings.”

‘Motshekga’s Moscow visit constitutional’


Lamola was also asked whether the ANC’s partners in the GNU were consulted on the decision to send defence minister Angie Motshekga to Moscow last week to attend Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War 2. The event was an ostentatious display of military power and support for Russia at a time when it was waging war on Ukraine. 

Lamola indicated the opinion of the other GNU partners was not necessary, as Ramaphosa had sent Motshekga to Moscow as his representative. He said that “foreign travel to represent the President or the government of the Republic of South Africa is approved and assigned by the President, as mandated by the Constitution”.

“So our participation in the Victory [Day] parade is in line with the good bilateral relations that we enjoy with Russia,” and was therefore not unconstitutional, he said. DM

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