By Monica Moorehead
May 26, 2025

No rational human being should ever be shocked by anything Donald Trump says or does — from when he first occupied the White House in 2017 to now in 2025. But even those among his capitalist backers were stunned by his public, racist treatment of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during his visit to the White House on May 21.

In an effort to humiliate President Ramaphosa, Trump had the gall to accuse him and the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of “white genocide” against farmers in South Africa. The EFF is leading a nationwide campaign of “Land Back” for landless Black South Africans.

During the White House meeting, Trump showed pictures and videos supposedly of these farmers being attacked, killed and then buried. Within a day, even the U.S. corporate media showed that all of this so-called evidence was falsified.

These Boer farmers — who had not after all been killed and buried — were the same who come from families that seized and occupied the best arable lands stolen from the overwhelmingly indigenous Black population dating back to the late 19th century. This was the tragic period when Boers, who had emigrated from the Netherlands, along with the British colonizers, came to power with extreme violence and superexploitation of the people’s labor and their precious resources. The same wealthy farmers tied to the fascist apartheid regime were finally ousted in 1994.

Economic inequality has worsened

Although legal apartheid was abolished in 1994, leading to the election of South Africa’s first Black president, Nelson Mandela, there has been no fundamental change in this economic relationship. To the contrary, today farmers of European origin constitute 8% of the general population and control 72% of private lands. Compare this to Black South Africans who constitute 80% of the population and only control between 4 – 10% of private lands.

South Africa is the most industrialized country on the African continent but today has an unemployment rate of over 32%, with the highest proportion of unemployed among women and youth. International corporations such as Coca-Cola, Mercedes Benz and Google dominate the economy along with gold, diamonds and platinum mining industries such as De Beers, Anglo American and Exxaro Resources, just to name a few.

South Africa’s economy is described as being “mixed,” but in reality, the majority of the population endure under neo-colonial conditions, similar to the rest of Africa.

During the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings held in South Africa in 1996, the apartheid regime’s crimes against the South African people were put on full display. Those white South Africans, including the police and military — who admitted to committing crimes against humanity — were given amnesty as a concession to help create a government led by the African National Congress.

Once the ANC lost a majority of its parliamentary seats in 2024, a coalition government of other parties was set up, including one that represents the Afrikaans speaking white population.

Today, while Trump is targeting the vast majority of migrants, documented and undocumented, with random arrests without warrants, deportations and jailings, he just allowed 59 white South Africans into the U.S. on May 12 with refugee status for being “victims of racial discrimination.”

More punishment for South Africa

Defending privileged white farmers is not the only reason Trump has targeted South Africa. One cannot forget on Dec. 29, 2023, that South Africa was the first country that brought a lawsuit against the U.S.-backed Zionist regime of Israel to the International Court of Justice for its genocide in Gaza. This act drew ire first from the “Genocide Joe” administration and then from the Trump regime.

Trump announced tariffs on South Africa on April 2,  a 30% tax on goods before implementing a 90-day pause. Also, the drastic cuts in the controversial U.S. Aid to International Development will severely restrict HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs, basic education and gender-based violence initiatives in South Africa.

The white supremacist Trump — along with his crony in crime, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk — are working hand in hand with corporate bosses to keep the South African masses in abject poverty and subjugation. The same repressive state apparatus still remains intact to repress the masses in order to maintain private property relations.

In “South Africa: Which road to liberation? A Marxist view,” a 1993 pamphlet, this author wrote the following: “Nowhere has a successful socialist revolution been realized without the total intervention of the masses smashing the old state of the oppressive ruling class and setting up their own state to defend and help consolidate a working-class democracy where the means of production are collectively owned and not based on private property. This is the first step to building a true socialist society where racism, poverty and exploitation are wiped out through a continuous process.”

The writer was an invited observer to the first unbanned African National Congress conference held in Durban, South Africa, in 1991.