“People are fleeing South Africa for their own safety,” said Trump, who at one point dimmed the lights in the Oval Office to play a video of a communist politician playing a controversial anti-apartheid song that includes lyrics about killing a farmer. “Their land is being confiscated and in many cases they’re being killed.”

Ramaphosa pushed back against Trump’s accusation. The South African leader had sought to use the meeting to set the record straight and salvage his country’s relationship with the United States. The bilateral relationship is at its lowest point since South Africa enforced its apartheid system of racial segregation, which ended in 1994.

“We are completely opposed to that,” Ramaphosa said of the behaviour alleged by Trump in their exchange. Experts in South Africa say there is no evidence of whites being targeted, although farmers of all races are victims of violent home invasions in a country that suffers from a very high crime rate. “We are essentially here to reset the relationship between the United States and South Africa,” he said. Trump has cut all U.S. assistance to South Africa and welcomed several dozen white South African farmers to the U.S. as refugees. He has launched a series of accusations at South Africa’s Black-led government, including that it is seizing land from white farmers, enforcing anti-white policies and pursuing an anti-American foreign policy. (Jamaica Gleaner)