Cupcake survives ambush in Trump’s bunker

President Cyril Ramaphosa could never have anticipated the multimedia ambush he received in the White House. But against all odds, Ramaphosa survived the skirmish thanks to a group US President Donald Trump respects more than any politician: champion golfers.

Fears ran high before the meeting of another debacle along the lines of Volodymyr Zelensky’s ill-fated trip to the White House in February, when Trump and his rabid deputy, JD Vance, savaged the Ukrainian president. 

But Ramaphosa and his team had practiced several scenarios for how the meeting could go and, in perhaps his saving grace, he had Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, both previous winners of the US Open, in his corner.

Trump, however, is predictably unpredictable. While the meeting began well, Ramaphosa must have felt ice run down his spine when the US president asked to dim the lights so he could play video clips of Julius Malema singing “Kill the boer, kill the farmer”, as well as footage of “graves” of thousands of slain white farmers. 

South Africa’s delegation hadn’t prepared for this, but Trump was intent on trotting out “evidence” of the genocide he’d earlier claimed was fact. 

Ramaphosa tried to lower the temperature, saying that Malema’s view was that of a “small minority party” and “not government policy”. When Vance asked him if he denounced “that type of language”, Ramaphosa was unequivocal: “Oh yes, we have always done so; we are completely opposed to that.”

In the end, it was John Steenhuisen, Ramaphosa’s agriculture minister, who perhaps came off best. Steenhuisen, speaking of Malema and Jacob Zuma, pointed out that neither of them are in government, depicting them as dangerous extremists whose views are antithetical to the government.

“We cannot have those people sitting in the Union Buildings making decisions,” he said. “That is why, after 30 years of us exchanging barbs across the floor in parliament and trying to get one over on each other, we’ve decided to join hands precisely to keep that lot out of government.”

Steenhuisen, like the other South African delegates, conceded that South Africa “has a rural safety problem”, which the country is battling to get on top of. But this is a crisis of crime that spans all race groups, said Zingiswa Losi, the president of trade union federation Cosatu.

Asked by a journalist what it would take to convincingly counter the claim of “white genocide”, Ramaphosa said: “It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans, some of whom are his good friends.”

Citing Els, Goosen and businessman Johann Rupert, who were in the room with him, Ramaphosa said: “If there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here.”

Els, in particular, was impressive. He waved his South African passport, explaining that the golfers had come to the Oval Office because “we are proud South Africans” and “still want to see our country flourish”. 

Trump, who appears to have zoned out at times when others spoke, was rapt. Afterwards, he said Els’s contribution was more eloquent than anyone else who had spoken before. “I respect champions,” he said.

Bringing the golfers was a masterstroke, though Ramaphosa later admitted it wasn’t his idea. “When I spoke to [Trump last week], we agreed we should meet and he said ‘bring along with you Gary Player, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen’, because he loves them – he’s an avid golfer,” he said.

It wasn’t all roses, mind; Goosen described how his brother, a farmer in Polokwane, is frequently assailed by people “trying to burn the farm down to chase you away”.

South Africa’s delegation would prefer that Goosen hadn’t told that story, but Ramaphosa later said the nasty experience of crime is one “we are not hiding”. 

‘A great success’

Ramaphosa’s team had gone there prepared to lavish favours on Trump. 

It was a smart strategy: as US publication Politico put it ahead of the meeting, “foreign leaders have learned that there is a nearly fail-safe strategy to surviving an Oval Office visit: show up ready to make deals and lather praise on President Donald Trump”.

As far as trade goes, South Africa’s package offered to the US includes 12 critical minerals, including the platinum group metals, manganese, chrome and rare earth metals. 

Ahead of the meeting, few gave Ramaphosa much chance of salvaging anything, given the heated clash in recent weeks in which Trump spoke of a “white genocide” and taking in 49 Afrikaner “refugees” last week.

Cameron Hudson, former director for African affairs on the National Security Council during the George W Bush administration, told Politico that he expected the meeting to be an “unmitigated disaster”.

But, briefing the media later in the evening, a visibly relieved Ramaphosa said he and Trump had “a rather pleasant lunch”, describing the visit as “a great success”.

He said that while South Africans had feared another “Z-moment” – presumably in reference to the Zelensky meeting – “that did not ensue”.

Ramaphosa said he wanted “a more positive disposition from the US” that would help attract more investment into the country.

So was the meeting a success? 

You’d have to say so – if only relative to the expectations ahead of the meeting, and to the damage the country could have taken when the “white genocide” issue arose.

But there is a more tangible benefit, as Trump’s “friends” – including Els, Goosen and Rupert – introduced a nuance that the US president evidently hadn’t expected. 

Despite Trump’s unmitigated claim of a “white genocide” in recent days, when asked whether he indeed was convinced of this, he responded: “I haven’t made up my mind.”

Getting Trump to express doubt is no mean feat; a complete U-turn may have to wait for round two.

_{Top image: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa meets US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.}