What in the World - Why Trump’s ‘white genocide’ claim in South Africa is false

Download Why Trump’s ‘white genocide’ claim in South Africa is false

US president Donald Trump has claimed that white farmers in South Africa are being executed en masse. But this is simply not true.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and his delegation went to Washington last week hoping for a boost and a reset after months of bitterness with the Donald Trump administration. Instead they got brutal, high-stakes diplomacy, peppered with insults, which played out to millions across the world in real time. This included Trump showing a video which supposedly proved ‘genocide’ was taking place against white farmers.

BBC journalist Nomsa Maseko breaks down where this false claim came from, how people in South Africa have responded to it, and what impact it could have on the future of relations between the two countries. We also hear why some white Afrikaners are taking up the offer of refugee status in the US.

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Presenter: William Lee Adams
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Editor: Verity Wilde

Published on Monday, 26th May 2025.

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