Opinion | Trump didn't want a deal with ramaphosa. He wanted a humiliation.

In view of the bizarre encounter, which unfolds on Wednesday in the Oval Office, it may sound unlikely, but President Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's President, actually have some common things. Both are plenty of wealthy business dayscoons that desire the highest office in their country and then reached quite late in life. Both share a foretaste of the refined leisure of the global elite – golf for Trump, fly fishing for ramaphosa.

The most important thing, however, is that both have built up their impressive reputation for a knack for the production of offers. In Trump's case, it was usually real estate: hotels, casinos, luxury ownership apartments. For his part, Ramaphosa was one of the most famous deals of the 20th century: he was the main negotiator in the conversations that the apartheid ends in South Africa.

Ramaphosa and his party, the African National Congress, did not achieve this remarkable performance at any unusual hand to find common properties and willingness to make hard decisions and great victims to achieve peace with a swore enemy. Sure, Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk, leader of their respective parties, received the Nobel Peace Prize. But Ramaphosa, relentless and equally charming, played a crucial role to bring the deal over the finish line.

So it may not be surprising that Ramaphosa, a Debonair Stateman who was not confident in his skills, believed that he could bring his considerable talents to the Oval Office and at least begin the process to act with the man who sees himself as king of business. Instead, Trump kidnapped the meeting to concentrate on a racist imagination of the white South Africans who suffer from a black majority. As a spectacle, it was grim captivating. It was deeply harmful as stateecraft.

It is not that there is nothing serious about which you could talk about. The two countries contradict a number of questions – the genocide in South Africa against Israel, customs duties, auxiliary reductions among the most endangered citizens in the country – who would benefit from justified discussions. But Trump had clearly planned to attack Ramaphosa, to use a television screen and to dim the lights to show a video of an opposition party leader, Julius Malema, who led a lot into a singing, “kill the Boers, kill the farmers” that Trump and his allies support their view that white people in South Africa are exposed to.

To put it the least, it was misleading. Malema, a notorious Gadfly and former leader of the youth wing of the African National Congress, was excluded a long time ago in a storm of the fights with the leaders of the party. His party, the economic freedom fighters, uses the broad seizure and redistribution of the White Land without compensation, a policy that the ANC rejected for a long time. Trump could point to the law that enables the government to confiscate land for a public purpose or in public interest “, but the government has not yet done so without compensation.