Pretoria says that the visit is to “reset” the links with Washington, after the United States welcomed dozens of white Afrikaners as refugees.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House next week to “reset” the links between the two countries, said Pretoria.
The reported visit comes after the United States welcomed dozens of white Afrikaners as a refugee this week, following largely discredited allegations made by Trump according to which the “genocide” is committed against white farmers in the predominantly black country.
“President Ramaphosa will meet President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC to discuss bilateral, regional and world interest issues,” the presidency of South Africa said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The president’s visit to the United States provides a platform to reset the strategic relationship between the two countries,” he added, saying that the trip will take place from Monday to Thursday and that the two leaders will meet on Wednesday.
The White House has not made any immediate comments on the meeting, which would be the first of Trump with the head of an African nation since his return in January.
Relations between Pretoria and Washington have bitterly embittered since Trump returned to the White House.
Trump criticized the government of Ramaphosa on several fronts. In February, he published an executive decree reducing all funding from the United States in South Africa, citing the disapproval of his policy of agrarian reform and his case of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Ally Israel.
‘Bad end of the stick’
Trump’s prescription also proposed to take and reinstall people from the minority Afrikaner community, which alleges being persecuted and killed because of their race – of the affirmations which were refuted by the experts and the government of South Africa.
The Afrikaners are descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers who led the apartheid regime for almost five decades.
Pretoria argues that there is no evidence of the whites in the country and that Ramaphosa said that the American government “had the bad end of the stick” because South Africa suffers overall from the problem of violent crime, whatever the race.
Critics of the United States also seem to focus on the laws on the positive action of South Africa which advance the opportunities for the majority black population, which were oppressed and deprived of their rights under apartheid.
A new law on land expropriation gives the government the power to take land in the public interest without compensation in exceptional circumstances. Although Pretoria says that law is not a confiscation tool and refers to unused land that can be redistributed for the public good, certain Afrikaner groups say that this could redistribute their land to a part of the country’s black majority.
According to data, whites, which represent around 7% of the population of South Africa, hold more than 70% of land and occupy most of the country’s high -level management positions.
Ramaphosa spoke several times about his desire to engage with diplomaticly Trump and improve the relationship between the two countries.
The United States is the second largest bilateral trading partner in South Africa after China.
