The News
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s calm performance in the face of US leader Donald Trump’s Oval Office ambush won plaudits at home.
Trump showed Ramaphosa videos of firebrand South African politicians calling for violence against whites, but the South African leader sought to focus discussion on trade and investment instead. “Lawmakers across party lines found themselves quietly cheering,” Semafor columnist Sam Mkokeli wrote.
Afrikaners, however, were divided: One politician said the meeting put the minority’s issues “on the international agenda,” but a leading columnist argued that the stories were “hyperbole and misinformation.”
The Financial Times’ foreign editor — formerly a longtime correspondent on the continent — said Pretoria had ignored inflammatory language from populists, but that Washington’s claims of genocide were “absurd.”