The political stock of President Cyril Ramaphosa has risen since US President Donald Trump berated him in the Oval Office on 21 May. Ramaphosa had been hoping to reset relations between the two countries after months of critiques from Trump and his advisor Elon Musk, the South African-born chief of Tesla and Starlink. Instead, he found himself refuting Trump’s false claims of ‘genocide’ against white farmers in South Africa.

Vincent Magwenya, Ramaphosa’s spokesman, called it a ‘well-orchestrated, well-planned ambush’. Ramaphosa didn’t take the bait. His position was strengthened by the backing of two major-winning golfers, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, as well as the billionaire Afrikaner business mogul Johann Rupert, who diplomatically contradicted Trump’s claims. 

In preparatory meetings in Washington, Ramaphosa had offered to buy US gas and open up critical mineral exploitation to US companies. We hear that the conversation got more constructive after the press conference ended. Ramaphosa was given some signals of US willingness to cooperate with South Africa’s presidency of the G20. But governments in Africa are asking what the encounter portends for US relations with other states on the continent. Writing in The Guardian, Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama condemned Trump’s claims of a white genocide as an ‘insult against all Africans’. Battle has been joined.