Ramaphosa had hoped his talks with Trump in the White House on Wednesday would help reset relations with the US that have nosedived since the US President took office in January.

But Trump spent most of the conversation confronting his visitor with false claims that South Africa's (SA) white minority farmers are being systematically murdered and having their land seized. SA has one of the highest murder rates in the world, but the overwhelming majority of victims are Black.

"He didn’t get Zelenskyed. That's what we have to hang on to," Rebecca Davis of the national Daily Maverick, herself a white South African, wrote in a column.

"It was impossible not to feel for Ramaphosa, who had been bombarded with messaging before the trip that he should under no circumstances lose his cool (or) rise to the bait. So he didn't."

In a meeting at the White House in February, Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Zelenskiy heatedly tried to argue his case.

For some, though, Ramaphosa's composure raised the question of what he had achieved by subjecting himself to that onslaught.

“I don't think it was the right call. I don't think we need to explain ourselves to US," 40-year-old Sobelo Motha, a member of a Shopkeepers' Union, said on the streets of Johannesburg.

--Reuters--