South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “bemused” by his encounter with President Trump at the White House earlier this month, laughing off the confrontational moment some have characterized as an ambush.
During Ramaphosa’s visit in the Oval Office, Trump at one point called for the lights to be dimmed so he could play a video that he used to back up claims of genocide against white South Africans.
“When I came in, I saw the room going a bit dark. They darkened the room. And for a moment I wondered, what is this? It’s happening to me again?” Ramaphosa told the Sustainable Infrastructure Development Symposium in Cape Town, according to SABC video footage, in apparent reference to dimmed lights at the venue. The remark drew laughter from the audience.
“Because at that moment, we were seated very nicely, and I was beginning to get into a groove of interacting … with this man,” he continued, without directly referencing Trump. “And I suddenly hear him say, ‘No, make — dim the lights.'”
He added, jokingly, “And I must say, a number of people have said, ‘This was an ambush. This was an ambush.’ And I was bemused. I was [saying], ‘What’s happening?’”
Ramaphosa’s meeting with the president was seen as an attempt to salvage the fraught relationship between South Africa and the U.S. as the Trump administration accuses the Black-led South African government of being racist against its white citizens.
During an otherwise cordial encounter, Trump confronted the Cape Town leader with baseless claims about mass murders of white South African farmers. Ramaphosa, once a close colleague of former leader Nelson Mandela, pushed back on the U.S. president’s assertions, acknowledging there is “criminality” in the country but noting a majority of victims of crime in South Africa are Black.
The tense Ramaphosa-Trump moment came a couple months after an Oval Office clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made global headlines.
Amid Russia’s ongoing war against Kyiv, Zelensky had been expected to sign off on a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s critical mineral supply — but Trump called off talks after the meeting devolved, arguing Zelensky was “not ready for Peace.” The deal was ultimately signed at a later date, however.
The White House froze aid to South Africa earlier this year and later offered an expedited pathway to citizenship to the white Afrikaners, running contrary to the administration’s broader crackdown on immigration.
South Africa is slated to host the Group of 20 (G20) gathering of the world’s largest economies later this year, and the Oval Office clash has raised questions about whether Trump could boycott the event.