Ambush or adult conversation: what awaits Ramaphosa in US?

Given the dire state of relations between the US and SA and all the falsehoods Trump is spreading about this country, sparks could fly at the meeting between the two presidents. By Peter Fabricius and Victoria O'Regan

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President Cyril Ramaphosa will have a high-stakes encounter with President Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday, 21 May, which could either reset South Africa's dreadful relations with the US or could become a disastrous Zelensky-style ambush.

It's a big gamble for Ramaphosa, but one he clearly feels he has to take to try to rescue relations that could hardly plunge any lower. As his office announced the visit on 14 May, unconfirmed reports emerged from Washington that the US would be pulling out entirely from the G20, which South Africa is organising this year (culminating in a summit in Johannesburg in November).

Speaking to reporters on 15 May, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the government had not yet received any official communication that the US would suspend its work on South Africa's G20.

Some fear Ramaphosa could be on a suicide mission and that he will be attacked before the cameras in the White House by Trump and his team as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ambushed by them when he visited on 28 February. One ambassador to Pretoria told Daily Maverick that he feared the meeting would just give Trump the opportunity to repeat his views about the Afrikaner "refugees" with "the President sitting next to him".

He was referring to Trump's press conference on 12 May, when he announced Ramaphosa's visit while he was justifying granting asylum to 59 white Afrikaners because a "genocide" was taking place against them in South Africa and also because, he claimed, their land was being seized.

Ntshavheni was optimistic about the meeting, telling reporters: “We are not worried.” She confirmed that Trump had invited Ramaphosa and said the government was “confident that the invitation came from a good place”, with the intention to engage and clarify. “We expect very cordial discussions, and as I've said previously, it doesn’t mean there will not be differences,” she said.