Donald Trump continued his nonstop Oval Office provocations in his meeting with South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa last Wednesday. The would-be US dictator insisted to Ramaphosa that South African whites were being subjected to genocide. This follows the admission of 59 South African Afrikaners to the US earlier this month, supposedly as refugees from persecution because of their race.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries between the two leaders on Wednesday, Ramaphosa replied to a question from a reporter by restating the obvious fact that there is no genocide taking place in South Africa. Trump then pivoted into his carefully prepared provocation. He called for the dimming of the lights and proceeded to display five minutes of carefully selected old video clips supposedly proving his charges of racial oppression of the white minority. He highlighted footage of the extreme black nationalist politician Julius Malema, who split from the ruling African National Congress years ago, leading chants of “Kill the Boer!”
Trump was also supplied with a sheaf of news clippings purportedly showing the widespread mistreatment of Afrikaners. Pointing to these papers, the president declared, without a scintilla of evidence, “They take the land, they kill the white farmer, and nothing happens to them.”
The behavior of the fascist president recalls the infamous words of Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, published exactly 100 years ago: “The great masses of the people… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.”
Trump’s brazen lies about persecution faced by whites have been repeatedly exposed. Whites, about 8 percent of South Africa’s population, own about three-quarters of its land. By every yardstick the population that had enjoyed racial privileges under apartheid continues to fare far better than the black majority, more than 30 years after the fall of the white racist regime. As far as murders and “genocide,” there is not even an iota of evidence. A few dozen murders of white farmers in a recent year compared to 23,000 for the country as a whole, with blacks the overwhelming victims.
But the fascist war criminal is doubling down on his lies. Among his statements at the White House was, “So we take [refugees] from many locations if we feel there’s persecution or genocide going on.”
These words came out of the mouth of a man who applauds and finances Israel’s current slaughter in Gaza, a genuine genocide whose victims number, not the 50 alleged in South Africa but 53,000 Palestinians, shot and bombed to death by the Zionist mass murderers over the past 19 months.
As for racial discrimination, the president is its biggest defender. More than 30 years after Nelson Mandela took office as president of South Africa, the leader of US imperialism is dispensing even with lip service to opposition to racism and colonialism. It was Trump who referred to Haiti and many African nations as “shithole countries.” Needless to say, he has not offered to take in any those victims of poverty and dictatorship.
As for official persecution, it is not the Afrikaners who have been victimized, but rather Momodou Taal, the Cornell student forced to leave the US even though he had a valid visa; Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University, jailed in Louisiana for more than two months; and others, including US citizens as well as international students, penalized merely for exercising their First Amendment rights to speak out in defense of the Palestinian people, to denounce the genocide which finds its most enthusiastic supporter in the White House.
Trump’s demagogy has a definite purpose, and it goes beyond the disordered and disorganized thoughts in his brain. The aims of the Trump administration, and those major sections of the ruling class behind it, include stirring up the so-called MAGA base, the most extreme elements—racist, white supremacist and fascist—to build up a mass fascist movement to be used against the working class.
The social demagogy of Trump, including his racism and xenophobia, aims at diverting attention from the real and growing crisis of this government. The nonstop circuses and scapegoating in the Oval Office, with full-scale press conferences, have replaced what were largely ceremonial meetings in the past. These are Trump’s answer to the tremors on the stock and bond markets, and above all to the growing resistance and class struggle, as workers see what trade wars, the dismantling of social spending and defiance of the Constitution mean for themselves and their families.
Trump’s meeting with Ramaphosa, the latest in a series of meetings with such leaders as Zelensky from Ukraine, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and others, also illustrates the fundamental shift taking place in the foreign policy of American imperialism. All the old alliances of the post-World War II period are collapsing and the ruling class in the person of Trump is declaring war on erstwhile allies while reserving some of its biggest threats for those countries historically oppressed by imperialism.
Leading voices in the bourgeois media and Trump’s political opponents have pointed out that his actions will lead to a continued decline in the US position and prestige. These comments ignore the fact, however, that the nuclear-armed United States remains the world’s largest economy and by far the world’s leading military power. The US ruling class under Trump wants to be feared, not admired. It is precisely the contradiction between US economic decline and military and political belligerence that threatens a nuclear third world war and the annihilation of civilization.
In the face of the deepening crisis and Trump’s belligerence, the White House meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa also shed light on the class nature of the South African government.
Ramaphosa was forced to cobble together a coalition government for the first time since the end of apartheid, after the worst-ever election results for the African National Congress in last year’s voting. Despite his best efforts at presenting a “dignified” posture in his meeting with Trump, it was clear that the South African president came to the White House to grovel before the fascist leader of what used to be called the “free world.” The event began with the South African leader politely shaking hands with Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, fascist advisor Stephen Miller and several others in Trump’s cabinet or inner circle.
While Ramaphosa could not and would not go along with Trump’s barely disguised nostalgia for the apartheid era, he fears the South African working class far more than he does the fascist president. Hence he responded to Trump’s tirades by saying, in reference to the accusations of anti-white discrimination, “We are willing to talk to you about these matters.” Explaining the social and economic roots of the undeniable problem of crime in South Africa would have meant exposing his own role and that of his government. Instead Ramaphosa pleaded with Trump, “We need US technology to deal with the acts of criminals.” “That is what partnership is about,” he continued. “We are here as a partner.”
As a leading representative of South African capitalism, Ramaphosa tried to steer the discussion, without much success, toward the issues of trade and investment. The president, a former leader of COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), is also a multimillionaire (to the tune of $450 million). COSATU’s role is that of an integral partner in the state apparatus. This was demonstrated by the remarks of COSATU’s president, Zingiswa Losi, who was in the White House as part of the South African delegation. Ms. Losi spoke unashamedly as the representative of South African business interests, boasting of the 600 US companies who have invested in South Africa and the 500,000 US jobs that South African exports provide.
The record of the ANC and of Ramaphosa in particular is a powerful expression of the theory of permanent revolution, which explains why the national bourgeoisie in less developed countries is incapable of meeting the most elementary needs of the masses. Ramaphosa was himself deeply implicated in the infamous Marikana massacre of 34 striking platinum miners in 2013. He has been rewarded for his ruthless defense of capitalism and ascended to the presidency in 2018.
The ANC is responsible for the deepening social crisis that has provided fertile grounds for the emergence of reactionary demagogue Julius Malema. The poverty rate for black South Africans is 64 percent, barely changed since the end of apartheid, according to a report of the South African Human Rights Commission. Although it is the most economically developed in Africa, the country is among the most unequal in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 0.63. This does not concern Trump, of course; he likely considers it one of South Africa’s more admirable characteristics.
There is only one effective answer to the rampages of Trump, as well as the role of figures like Ramaphosa in accommodating themselves to the aspiring Führer, and that is the building of an international revolutionary leadership in the working class to fight for socialism.