Ramaphosa remains cool while Trump's choreographed rush

Three months after Donald Trump's second term of office, foreign leaders should be aware that a coveted trip to the Oval Office runs the risk of a very public dressing, which often moves in attempts from provocation and humiliation.

The episode on Wednesday with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was a classic of its kind.

As a television cameras rolled and after a cheerful discussion, a journalist asked what it would need to be convinced that discredited claims of the “white genocide” in South Africa are untrue.

Ramaphosa initially replied by saying that the president had to “listen to the votes of the South Africans on this topic”. Trump then came in and asked an assistant to turn the light and put on the television so that he could show the South African guide “a few things”.

Elon Musk, his consultant and a billionaire born in South Africa, observed quietly behind a couch.

What followed was an extraordinary and highly choreographed attack of the accusations of the US president because of the alleged persecution of white South Africans, who repeated the aggressive treatment of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during his visit to the White House in February.

The film material on the large screen showed South African political fire burns that sang “Shoot the Boer”, an anti-apartheid song. And Trump, so often critically against the news media, seemed to be happy to organize pictures of uncertain origin. When asked where there were alleged graves of white farmers, he simply replied “South Africa”.

The US leader also seemed to believe that the political leaders in the film material – which are not part of the government – had the power to confiscate land from white farmers. You don't.

While Ramaphosa signed a controversial law that allows land fitting reasons at the beginning of this year without compensation, the law was not implemented. And the South African publicly distanced itself from the language in the political speeches shown.

But the highest ally of South Africa Nelson Mandela and the negotiator, who contributed to ending the apartheid regime of the rule of the white minority, was prepared for this meeting.

Trump sometimes does not seem to be aware of the transparent efforts of foreign leaders, and that was clearly part of the South African strategy.

Donald Trump is a golffanetician, but Ramaphosas Gambit, two top golfers – Ernie Els and Retief Goosen – to a meeting about diplomatic problems, and trade policy is not adopted any textbook on international relationships that I have ever read.

The pleasure of the US President of having the two white South African golfers was visible to everyone.

Her forecasts for the fate of the White Farmers received almost as much time with the democratically elected president of South Africa, which was largely limited to calm, short interventions.

But Ramaphosa will probably be satisfied with it. The golfers, together with his white Minister of Agriculture himself, even from an opposition party that is part of the National Unity Government, were at least partially as a shield – a kind of diplomatic golden dome, if you like, and worked.

Trump repeatedly returned to the question of the farmers' emergency – of whom he welcomed to the United States as refugees in the United States. But President Ramaphosa did not bite and the provocations were largely bubbles in the breeze.

At some point he referred to the golfers and an African billionaire who had joined his delegation, and said Trump: “If there is a genocide of Africans, I can bet that these three gentlemen would not be here.”

But although President Trump did not manage to get out of the South African president, this does not mean that his efforts over more than an hour were free. They were certainly not.

This performative style of diplomacy is just as much at the domestic American audience as well as the latest visitor to the Oval Office.

Central to the Make America Great Over (Maga) project is to maintain energy with perceived grievances and resentments, and President Trump knows what his followers want.

If some foreign managers learn to navigate these moments with skills, Donald Trump may have to change the game book a little to continue to have the effects he wants.