By Nandita Bose, Tim Cocks and Daphne Psaledakis
WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to raise several issues in a meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, including seeking an exemption for U.S. companies from laws requiring equity ownership by disadvantaged groups, a White House official told Reuters.
The meeting between Trump and Ramaphosa marks a pivotal moment in strained U.S.-South Africa relations, which have soured over diverging positions on racial equity laws and international diplomacy.
Trump has taken aim at South Africa during his second term, criticizing its land reform policies and its genocide case against U.S. ally Israel at the International Court of Justice.
His administration cut funding to the country in February and, last week, granted refugee status to a group of white South Africans it claims are facing racial discrimination – a claim the South African government strongly denies.
The two heads of state are scheduled to meet on Wednesday, and South African officials have been preparing a trade proposal to present to Trump to reset the relationship.
The White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the meeting will likely include a request that all U.S. companies be exempt from South Africa’s “racial requirements.”
Under South African law, businesses over a certain size must have a 30% equity stake held by disadvantaged groups, which includes black South Africans. Alternatively, the businesses can spend an equivalent amount on training or other initiatives.
Any change to the laws may pose an uphill battle at home for Ramaphosa, as they are largely seen as aligned with the principles of restoring racial justice that Ramaphosa’s party fought for.
Trump is also expected to address slow economic growth in South Africa and what the official described as the “trade imbalance” and “persecution of Afrikaners,” who are descendants of mostly Dutch early settlers and also sometimes called Boers.
The South African government “needs to loudly condemn politicians who promote genocidal rhetoric like the ‘kill the Boer’ chant,” the official added. “The government of South Africa needs to classify farm attacks as a priority crime.”
Trump has said, without evidence, that Afrikaners were being killed and that a genocide was taking place.
South Africa refutes the claim that white farmers are victims of a genocide. Murders of white farmers, though sometimes cruel and gruesome, make up about 0.25% of the roughly 20,000 murders in South Africa every year.
A court ruled in March that “kill the Boer” is not hate speech but a historical chant from the struggle for liberation from apartheid.
The administration’s move to grant refugee status to 59 white South Africans, after deeming them victims of racial discrimination, drew criticism from Democrats and stirred confusion in South Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday’s meeting was an outreach from Ramaphosa.
“He said he wanted to come to Washington. He wanted to reset relations with the United States… If there’s a willingness on their side to reset relations, obviously something we’ll explore, but we do so with eyes wide open to what they’ve done so far,” he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Nandita Bose in Washington and Tim Cocks in Johannesburg; Editing by Nia Williams)
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