US President Donald Trump points a finger during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US, April 7, 2025.
Representatives of South African holdovers from the apartheid regime are in the United States seeking help to establish a separatist white-only state.
They, of course, would not have embarked on such an audacious mission if not hopeful of sympathetic ears from the regime of President Donald Trump and his campaign bankroller of South African descent, Elon Musk.
Barely a month after assuming office at the beginning of this year, President Trump made the false claim that the white people of South Africa were facing oppression in their homeland. He told a blatant lie that the whites were being subjected to illegal land seizures under the black majority government, offering to grant them asylum in the US.
That was an outlandish claim and an equally outlandish solution at a time when the Trump government is moving full steam ahead with mass deportations of illegal immigrants, mostly targeting non-whites.
The White House is tightening the door on asylum-seekers fleeing war and oppression. It is even expelling those who had previously been offered refuge and will be in great danger of being killed or treated brutally if sent back to the places they fled.
Privileged white supremacists
Yet it is happy to roll out the red carpet for a small group of privileged white supremacists who still own nearly all the land and wealth but still pine for a return of the apartheid system in South Africa.
I can bet my bottom dollar that President Trump cannot point out South Africa on the world map. He probably has very limited knowledge of the history of that country and its long journey from white domination and racial segregation to majority democratic rule.
He is obviously allowing Mr Musk to dictate policies that aim to impede the country’s long-delayed transition to land, economic and social justice. Thirty years after the end of apartheid and the establishment of the first democratic government under the revered Nelson Mandela, it is clear more than ever that the end of white rule must be followed by the end of white domination of the economy.
South Africa has been too patient. It will come to regret if it does not take very urgent steps to confront economic apartheid. The country could go up in flames if the black majority, disillusioned and embittered that democracy did not dismantle the apartheid State, decide to take measures into their own hands.
If he was a wise man, President Trump would be helping President Cyril Ramaphosa drive an orderly transition to a truly multiracial South Africa.
Instead, he is taking positions shaped by his own white supremacist tendencies. President Ramaphosa may not alone be able to stand up to his American counterpart, but Africa as a continent would have a great impact standing with him shoulder-to-shoulder.
It would be a powerful message if all African countries came together to resist the return of the Ugly American.
Countering President Trump’s excesses, in fact, should not be just an African agenda. Almost the entire world is affected by his regression to insular policies such as trade protectionism, withdrawal from global accords and turning his back on security commitments with allies.
What a powerful and effective message it would be if countries in the rest of the Americas, as well as Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East collectively said a big no to further engagement with the US until some of those crazy Trump moves are abandoned.
Americans too, have a role to play on resisting Trump’s racist policies at home, which are clearly geared to “Make America White Again” by rolling back the gains of the Civil Rights Act and other initiatives towards a just and equal society.
Global community
It is easy for President Trump to bully individual countries, but he cannot intimidate a world that will jointly resist, and also remind him that the US is part of the global community and will not thrive as an island.
Americans are already realising that they were conned by grandiloquent promises, but ended up electing a dictator who will trample on their democratic rights, use the office to enrich himself and drive policies that isolate them from the rest of the world. They are welcome to visit Kenya for benchmarking on effective “Must Go” campaigns.
Meanwhile, that handful of South African apartheid remnants cosying up to President Trump must appreciate that they are very fortunate to live in a democratic and tolerant society.
With the end of white minority rule, they established their own white-only enclave in the country. Anywhere else in Africa, they would have been jailed or expelled.
gaithomail@gmail.com; @MachariaGaitho
