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| - AN old video showing South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, criticizing U.S. president, Donald Trump, is being shared online with a claim that it depicts his response to Trump’s recent threat against the southern African country.
The video is circulating following Trump’s recent announcement to suspend all future U.S. funding to South Africa, alleging that its government is confiscating land and mistreating certain groups.
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Trump stated that U.S. aid to South Africa would be withheld until these issues are thoroughly investigated.
An X account, @instablog9ja, posted the video with a caption that read:
“South African fires back at Donald Trump.”
The post has generated over 200,000 views, with more than 2,000 likes and over 500 reposts of February 4, 2025.
Another X user, @Lawrence_LH7, posted the same video with a similar caption thus:
“President @CyrilRamaphosa has fired back!”
The post has generated over 150,000 views, with over 700 reposts and more than 2,000 likes of February 4, 2025.
CLAIM
Video shows Ramaphosa responding recently to Trump’s latest threat.
THE FINDINGS
Findings by The FactCheckHub show that the claim is MISLEADING.
Land is a complex issue in South Africa. Racist policies of the past forcefully removed black and non-white South Africans from the land for white use.
There has been a land redistribution and restitution provision in the country’s constitution since South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994. However, the government has been criticized for not moving quickly enough to settle land disputes.
The FactCheckHub subjected the keyframes in the video to a Google Reverse Image search and the results show that the video has been online since 2018. An earlier version of the video can be seen here and here.
The video shows Ramaphosa’s response to Trump after the US President criticized the country’s land reform policies in a tweet about 7 years ago.
Trump had in August 2018 tweeted that he asked the then Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers.”
Trump’s tweet appeared to be in response to reports alleging that the South African government was “seizing land from white farmers.”
Reacting to the post, Ramaphosa slammed Trump for meddling in his country’s internal affairs, telling him to keep his America as the African country has homegrown solutions for its problems.
Ramaphosa who made the remark while addressing the audience at a biodiversity conference in Ha-Matsila village in Limpopo said he planned to make it clear to Trump whenever the two leaders meet that South Africa was a sovereign state.
“I don’t know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land because he has never been here and he must keep his America, we will keep our South Africa, that is what he must do; South Africa is our land.
“South Africa belongs to all the people who live here in South Africa, it does not belong to Donald Trump; he can keep his America, when I meet him I will tell him.”
President Ramaphosa said it was astonishing that Trump, who has never set his foot in South Africa, concerns himself with the Southern African country’s land issue.
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It is pertinent to note that the video in circulation depicts South Africa’s president’s reaction to the tussle in August 2018.
The recent announcement signals a reignited Trump interest in the case. However, the latest reaction of Ramaphosa to Trump’s recent threat can be seen here.
THE VERDICT
The claim that the video shows the recent reaction of South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to Trump’s threat to cancel all aid to South Africa is MISLEADING; the video has been online since 2018.
Nurudeen Akewushola is a fact-checker with FactCheckHub. He has authored several fact checks which have contributed to the fight against information disorder. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 via Twitter.
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