The South African case is important because it plays a central role in global white supremacist claims. These mythologies claim that white South Africans, specifically Afrikaners, are the canary in the coalmine: that the alleged oppression they are facing is a blueprint for what will happen to all white people if they don’t “fight back”.

Though the name of Donald Trump went unmentioned, everyone knew who Ramaphosa was talking about. A few days earlier, the US president had written on his Truth Social platform that South Africa was “confiscating land and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.

South Africa appears to be at a crossroads in its waxing and waning relationship with the US following President Donald Trump's controversial decision last week to cut financial aid to the country. Trump said South Africa was pursuing what he called "unjust and immoral practices" against the white minority Afrikaner community and by filing a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in December 2023.