A new ambassador to a foreign country leader was set up yesterday by the US president Donald Trump welcoming to Oval office its president South Africa Siril Ramafa, making him target in front of television cameras.

In a scene, clearly orchestrated by the White House, reminiscent of the Ukrainian President’s visit Volodimir Zelenski In February, Trump confronted Ramafa with false claims of genocide against South African whites, including allegations of mass killings and seizures of land.

It was yet another demonstration of Trump’s readiness to use the Oval Office, which is historically intended to honor foreign officials, to bring visitors to less powerful nations or to involve them in cases of interest, Reuters notes.

The use of the Presidential Office by Trump for such events could push foreign leaders to rethink it before accepting its invitations and risking public humiliation, a reluctance that could make it difficult to strengthen bonds with friends.

Patrick Gaspar, a former US ambassador to South Africa under Barack Obama, said Trump turned the meeting with Ramafa into a “shameful spectacle” and “angered him with false and violent rhetoric”.

“The commitment to Trump’s terms never goes well for anyone,” Gaspar, now a partner at the Think-Tank Center for American Progress in Washington, wrote in X.

The meeting at the Oval Office had been presented as an opportunity to restore the strained relations between the US and South Africa, especially after the imposition of Trump duties, and to relieve the escalating tensions on its unfounded accusations for “white genocide” and the whitewashed of white.

After a heartfelt start at the meeting, Trump, a former reality star, ordered to lower the lights in the Oval Office and showed a video and printed articles that were supposed to be proof that white South Africans were being prosecuted.

THE Ramafaclearly prepared to face Trump’s accusations, but unlikely to expect this political theater, he was careful and calm as he tried to refute what his host presented.

“I’m sorry I don’t have an airplane to offer you,” Ramafa jokes smiling, referring to the luxurious jet that Qatar offered to Trump to replace the Air Force One.

His spokesman, Vincent Maguenia, told South African Broadcasting Newzroom Afrika that “you could see that President Ramafa was provoking”.

“You could see that they were pulling the sleeve and it didn’t fall into the trap,” Maguenia said.

Cameron Hudson, a partner at the Think Tank Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that while the television part of the meeting was a circus, “he never went beyond the limits of anger or causticity, so he did not.”

Yesterday’s scene did not look like what was set up against Zelenski a few months ago, at a meeting in a dispute involving both Trump and Vice President Jay Di Vance.

Zelenski, like Ramafa, was there to try to heal a rift in relations and, in the case of Ukraine, to maintain the US military aid to Kiev in the war against the Russian invasion forces.

But the meeting quickly escaped, with Trump accusing Zelenski of being disrespectful and playing with a possible third World War, and Vasz accusing the Ukrainian leader of not showing enough assessment to support the US.

The controversial nature of the meeting has shocked NATO’s alliance that supports Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

It may have been less at the meeting with Ramafa, but South Africa is an important political and economic factor in Africa that considers China as its largest commercial partner, with the US coming second. South Africa, who suffered centuries of harsh discrimination against blacks during colonialism and apartheid before becoming a multi -party democracy in 1994 under Nelson Mandela, rejects Trump’s allegations.

Yesterday’s Trump rhetoric was adapted to parts of its political base, especially to the far -right and white nationalist departments that have long been promoting the narration of a “white genocide” in South Africa.

By presenting unconfirmed allegations of violence against white farmers and presenting agricultural reform as a racial prosecution, Trump used discussion points popular in the far -right US extremist circles.

From his return to power in January, Trump canceled the help, expelled the South African ambassador and re -established some of the white minority Africans on the basis of allegations of racial discrimination that Pretoria considers unfounded.

A new law on the agricultural reform of South Africa, aimed at restoring apartheid’s injustices, allows expropriations without compensation when it is in the public interest, for example whether the Earth is in thunder.

“If one doubts that the incident with Zelensky was not fully directed by the White House, I think he does not see clearly,” said British foreign affairs commentator Tim Marshall at Times radio station in London.