An expert’s point of view on a current event.

The U.S. president is fixated on an expropriation policy that isn’t as radical as he thinks.

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May 23, 2025, 10:09 AM

On Wednesday in the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump received South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Their initially friendly banter quickly gave way as Trump levied false claims over a genocide of white South Africans, and in particular white farmers. He even cued a misleading video alleging to back up his claim and charged Ramaphosa and his team to watch it.

It was an embarrassing episode of disrespect to a foreign leader, perhaps second only to Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s fight in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And it occurred shortly after the Trump administration welcomed its first batch of global refugees: white South Africans. While Trump has shut the door to refugees as part of an across-the-board immigration crackdown, he has cynically and painfully made an exception for white Afrikaners, the group that ruled during South Africa’s apartheid era.

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Michael Albertus is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and...

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