The Truth About South Africa’s Anti-American Agenda

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.

Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. We’ve had another “ambush” in the White House. Ambush, remember, means an unexpected attack on someone from a secretive place. That was not an ambush. Cyril Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, wanted that meeting with President Donald Trump. He requested it. And when he came in, he was prepared to refute Donald Trump.

In fact, if you look at the media before the meeting, they didn’t use the word “ambush.” They were giddy. They thought, “Wow, he’s going to give Trump a bill of goods.” What he didn’t think was that Trump was ready for the bill of goods and had his own bill of goods.

But here’s the real backstory to the whole thing. Why did he want to meet Trump? He wanted to meet Trump because he had a free trade agreement with the United States with no tariffs placed on South African agriculture—everything, metals, everything. And he was running a $9 billion surplus. And in addition to that, he was getting $500 million in foreign aid from the United States.

And in addition to that, his ambassador had just been fired or expelled by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Why? Because in a performance art fashion, he made a video and said Donald Trump was a white supremacist. This is the ambassador, just before this visit, not too long earlier. And then said that he was part of a white victimhood movement. So, they kicked him out. Was he embarrassed? No. He had a hero’s welcome when he went back.

And then we have the larger context of South Africa. It usually votes at the United Nations against the United States. It’s signed onto the International Criminal Court’s farce that was going to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal. We had the video that was shown about the leader of the third-largest party in South Africa saying that they wanted to “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” to a big crowd.

And by the way, the year before—he said that in 2022—something called the South African Equality Court declared that “kill the Boer, kill the farmer” is not hate speech. I don’t know what hate speech is in South Africa if it’s not kill a designated minority.

And so, when you look at all of this, Donald Trump got sick of it. And he said, this country, we don’t have any problem with it. We don’t hate South Africa. But they’re not our friends. This is not Nelson Mandela. This is not the age of conciliation. This is not the South Africa with such promise 30 years ago. This is a racialist state. It’s one of the most violent countries in the world. And it’s one of the most anti-Western and anti-American.

And so, when Ramaphosa came to set Donald Trump straight, Donald Trump said: You know what? I don’t think you like us. So I’m not gonna give you $500 million in foreign aid. You know what? I don’t think you like us because you think I’m a white supremacist, so we’re not gonna give you free trade into our markets. We’re gonna charge 30% tariff. You know what, you know, your ambassador—all you guys come over here, you don’t like us, you think that the left-wing foundations, the left-wing media, the left-wing universities are running the country, the left-wing—but they’re not. They’re not. So, when you come over here and attack us and call us racist, maybe you shouldn’t come over here. You know, just have a little peace. Maybe all your foreign students, your green card holders, your visitor visa—maybe we should just have a little cooling off period.

And so, what Donald Trump was saying is that this is not the South Africa that we used to know. But it was running on the fumes of Mandelaism. At the United Nations, it’s hostile to the United States. It takes advantage of the free trade agreement to run up a $9 billion surplus. It gets $500 million in aid. And it shows no gratitude. It attacks us. It attacks us.

And then when we try to say that you have a law that is going to appropriate land without compensation, you deny that you’re doing it. That was the whole purpose of it. No compensation. You can say, “Well, it was for public domain,” but everybody knows that. So, everybody who confiscates land does it for the public, but they compensate people, except you.

And finally, you know, you want internet. You want internet like Ukraine has. You want internet like remote places in Asia and Africa have. And you want, therefore, Starlink. And you think that Elon Musk is a native son, so you’re going to invite him in and have Starlink. But you can’t even do that.

You say, “You can come in. We’ll give you the privilege to come into our market,” as if Elon Musk needs that. “But we’re gonna take a third of your company and your franchise here in South Africa. And it has to be staffed, partnered with people who are of a particular color, black people.”

And Elon Musk says, “I think I’ll pass on that nice invitation.” And then they get very angry. And now they’ll probably bend.

Final word, I think Ramaphosa will be—I don’t think Donald Trump will visit South Africa, but I guarantee you Ramaphosa will want another meeting, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did.

And he will come in and he will say, “Please take away the 30% tariff. Please give us the $500 million handout in foreign aid. Please let all the South Africans, not just the 48 people—and who, by the way, whom he called cowards because they didn’t want to play the lottery whether they were gonna get killed or not—but let all of us come back in. Please. Please. Please. And we promise that we’ll not allow people to pack stadium, say, ‘Kill the Boer, kill the farmer,’ and say, ‘That’s not hate speech.’”

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