Trump ambushes South African president at White House meeting

[ThreeCardMonte]

8 minutes ago, NickyLouie said:

Legacy (fake media) all told to regurgitate the exact same 'ambush' headline.

 

Trump gave a masterclass (again) how to check the world's corrupt leaders who keep coming to the White House to beg .....

 

 

Maxine Waters and Al Sharpton won’t be happy.  Along with Whoopy, Joy Reid and Don Lemon.

[spidermike007]

Trump is completely lost. His tariffs will only diminish the US and it's economy. He just doesn't get it at all. 

 

Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.

 

China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different.

It already leads global production in multiple industries — steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and bullet trains. It is projected to account for 45 percent — nearly half — of global manufacturing by 2030. Beijing is also laser-focused on winning the future:

 

In March it announced a $138 billion national venture capital fund that will make long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and robotics, and increased its budget for public research and development.

The Chinese electric carmaker BYD, which Mr. Trump’s political ally Elon Musk once laughed off as a joke, overtook Tesla last year in global sales, is building new factories around the world and in March reached a market value greater than that of Ford, GM and Volkswagen combined.

 

China is charging ahead in drug discoveries, especially cancer treatments, and installed more industrial robots in 2023 than the rest of the world combined. In semiconductors, the vital commodity of this century and a longtime weak point for China, it is building a self-reliant supply chain led by recent breakthroughs by Huawei. Critically, Chinese strength across these and other overlapping technologies is creating a virtuous cycle in which advances in multiple interlocking sectors reinforce and elevate one another.

 

Yet Mr. Trump remains fixated on tariffs. He doesn’t even seem to grasp the scale of the threat posed by China. Before the two countries’ announcement last Monday that they had agreed to slash trade tariffs, Mr. Trump dismissed concerns that his previous sky-high tariffs on Chinese goods would leave shelves empty in American stores. He said Americans could just get by with buying fewer dolls for their children — a characterization of China as a factory for toys and other cheap junk that is wildly out of date.

 

The United States needs to realize that neither tariffs nor other trade pressure will get China to abandon the state-driven economic playbook that has worked so well for it and suddenly adopt industrial and trade policies that Americans consider fair. If anything, Beijing is doubling down on its state-led approach, bringing a Manhattan Project-style focus to achieving dominance in high-tech industries.

 

Mr. Trump’s blinkered

obsession with short-term Band-Aids like tariffs, while actively undermining what makes America strong, will only hasten the onset of a Chinese-dominated world.

If each nation’s current trajectory holds, China will likely end up completely dominating high-end manufacturing, from cars and chips to M.R.I. machines and commercial jets. The battle for A.I. supremacy will be fought not between the United States and China but between high-tech Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou. Chinese factories around the world will reconfigure supply chains with China at the center, as the world’s pre-eminent technological and economic superpower.

 

America, by contrast, may end up as a profoundly diminished nation. Sheltered behind tariff walls, its companies will sell almost exclusively to domestic consumers. The loss of international sales will degrade corporate earnings, leaving companies with less money to invest in their businesses. American consumers will be stuck with U.S.-made goods that are of middling quality but more expensive than global products, owing to higher U.S. manufacturing costs. Working families will face rising inflation and stagnant incomes. Traditional high-value industries such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are already being lost to China; the important industries of the future will follow. Imagine Detroit or Cleveland on a national scale.

 

Avoiding that grim scenario means making policy choices — today — that should be obvious and already have bipartisan support: investing in research and development; supporting academic, scientific and corporate innovation; forging economic ties with countries around the world; and creating a welcoming and attractive climate for international talent and capital. Yet the Trump administration is doing the opposite in each of those areas.

Whether this century will be Chinese or American is up to us. But the time to change course is quickly running out.

[Yellowtail]

5 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Trump is completely lost. His tariffs will only diminish the US and it's economy. He just doesn't get it at all. 

 

Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.

 

China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different.

It already leads global production in multiple industries — steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, batteries, solar power, electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, 5G equipment, consumer electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients and bullet trains. It is projected to account for 45 percent — nearly half — of global manufacturing by 2030. Beijing is also laser-focused on winning the future:

 

In March it announced a $138 billion national venture capital fund that will make long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies such as quantum computing and robotics, and increased its budget for public research and development.

The Chinese electric carmaker BYD, which Mr. Trump’s political ally Elon Musk once laughed off as a joke, overtook Tesla last year in global sales, is building new factories around the world and in March reached a market value greater than that of Ford, GM and Volkswagen combined.

 

China is charging ahead in drug discoveries, especially cancer treatments, and installed more industrial robots in 2023 than the rest of the world combined. In semiconductors, the vital commodity of this century and a longtime weak point for China, it is building a self-reliant supply chain led by recent breakthroughs by Huawei. Critically, Chinese strength across these and other overlapping technologies is creating a virtuous cycle in which advances in multiple interlocking sectors reinforce and elevate one another.

 

Yet Mr. Trump remains fixated on tariffs. He doesn’t even seem to grasp the scale of the threat posed by China. Before the two countries’ announcement last Monday that they had agreed to slash trade tariffs, Mr. Trump dismissed concerns that his previous sky-high tariffs on Chinese goods would leave shelves empty in American stores. He said Americans could just get by with buying fewer dolls for their children — a characterization of China as a factory for toys and other cheap junk that is wildly out of date.

 

The United States needs to realize that neither tariffs nor other trade pressure will get China to abandon the state-driven economic playbook that has worked so well for it and suddenly adopt industrial and trade policies that Americans consider fair. If anything, Beijing is doubling down on its state-led approach, bringing a Manhattan Project-style focus to achieving dominance in high-tech industries.

 

Mr. Trump’s blinkered

obsession with short-term Band-Aids like tariffs, while actively undermining what makes America strong, will only hasten the onset of a Chinese-dominated world.

If each nation’s current trajectory holds, China will likely end up completely dominating high-end manufacturing, from cars and chips to M.R.I. machines and commercial jets. The battle for A.I. supremacy will be fought not between the United States and China but between high-tech Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Hangzhou. Chinese factories around the world will reconfigure supply chains with China at the center, as the world’s pre-eminent technological and economic superpower.

 

America, by contrast, may end up as a profoundly diminished nation. Sheltered behind tariff walls, its companies will sell almost exclusively to domestic consumers. The loss of international sales will degrade corporate earnings, leaving companies with less money to invest in their businesses. American consumers will be stuck with U.S.-made goods that are of middling quality but more expensive than global products, owing to higher U.S. manufacturing costs. Working families will face rising inflation and stagnant incomes. Traditional high-value industries such as car manufacturing and pharmaceuticals are already being lost to China; the important industries of the future will follow. Imagine Detroit or Cleveland on a national scale.

 

Avoiding that grim scenario means making policy choices — today — that should be obvious and already have bipartisan support: investing in research and development; supporting academic, scientific and corporate innovation; forging economic ties with countries around the world; and creating a welcoming and attractive climate for international talent and capital. Yet the Trump administration is doing the opposite in each of those areas.

Whether this century will be Chinese or American is up to us. But the time to change course is quickly running out.

Dude has it bad.

[spidermike007]

7 hours ago, MeRakThai said:

Yes i have been to South Africa, soweto, Johannesburg etc. you are correct and criticism of you needs addressing. Trump seems to be pissed off at South Africa for political reasons . The below is from the ABC and taken from correspondents in cape town:

Both white and Black farmers and even conservative white Afrikaner groups debunked the Trump administration’s “genocide” and land seizure claims that led the U.S. to cut all financial aid to South Africa. Farmers agree that violent crime is a problem for everyone.

 

Latest stats from South Africa 

"the latest figures show that nearly 10,000 people were murdered in the country between October and December 2024. Of these, a dozen were killed in farm attacks and of the 12, one was a farmer, while five were farm dwellers and four were employees, who are likely to have been black."

Trump lies through ommision

Trump lies every time he opens his foul mouth. He creates narratives (they're eating the dogs, they're eating your cats) like a breakfast cook creates home fries. Lying is all he knows and it has served him well. Most of his fortune was acquired through the con, and he continues to employ it. And the saddest part is how many people buy his fabrications and distortions. 

[Yellowtail]

1 minute ago, spidermike007 said:

Trump lies every time he opens his foul mouth. He creates narratives (they're eating the dogs, they're eating your cats) like a breakfast cook creates home fries. Lying is all he knows and it has served him well. Most of his fortune was acquired through the con, and he continues to employ it. And the saddest part is how many people buy his fabrications and distortions. 

get a grip brother

[ThreeCardMonte]

11 hours ago, Stocky said:

South Africa recorded 26,232 murders in 2024, which translates to a murder rate of approximately 42 per 100,000 people, one of the highest in the world. The majority of these deaths occur in urban and high-density areas, with the highest provincial murder rates found in Eastern Cape (19.6), Western Cape (16.0), KwaZulu-Natal (12.6), and Gauteng (10.3) per 100,000 people.

 

In 2024, only 44 murders were associated with farming communities, with just 8 of those victims being White farmers themselves. Most farm murders are motivated by robbery and general violent crime, not racial targeting or political motives.

 

The murder rate of White farmers in South Africa, is comparable to or even lower than the overall national murder rate, contrary to popular claims that farmers face disproportionately higher risks.

 

If Trump wants to talk about genocide then he should consider the plight of Gaza which has seen the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians, including more than 17,000 children. Maybe Netanyahu would have benefited from a slide show in the Oval Office.

“er the plight of Gaza which has seen the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinian”

 

please continue.

 

 

[spidermike007]

7 hours ago, MeaMaximaCulpa said:

 

I usually don’t get involved in the political threads on the forum, but I must admit I am drawn to them like a moth to a flame or to the proverbial slow motion train wreck. For shock and entertainment. But I will make an exception today, because the above comment I saw from @spidermike007 just cannot go unanswered. This also includes a lot of his “mates”, but I shall not bother to name them here, we all know who they are by now, as do they of course. Either they are pure trolls, they participate in the inane “post-count competition”, or they are just grossly uninformed, willfully or otherwise. On the flip side, there are also many well informed commenters here. We don’t have always to agree, but we should discuss issues and facts.

So when faced with a serious and complex subject like what is going on in South Africa, the best you can come up with is a sad little attack on Trump, and a very unfunny “joke” about the price of his suit. Really? Really? Pathetic. Have you ever even been to South Africa? Have you studied the background and history? Anything at all? Do you even care?

This will be a bit long, but hopefully worth reading if you care about the world around you. It is a parallel to the Russia/Ukraine debacle, where I am met with “Russia attacked, so nothing more to discuss”. Well a lot actually, because history and context matters. A lot. But just for the record: I am NOT condoning apartheid, nor am I a Putin apologist. So just don’t bother to go there.

I am not claiming to be an expert, but I did spend five years living and working there (in Pinetown, outside Durban), and travelled extensively around the country, talking to people everywhere, from all walks of life, including my own employees and people in squatter camps and “black townships”. Man did they have tales to tell. South Africa was a great country, with great natural resources, geography, infrastructure, climate, people and a promising future. I wish I could write “is”, but I am not sure if the situation can be turned around before it is too late, before we have “Zimbabwe V2.0”. I still hope to be proven wrong!

I was there in the 1990s, during the time that Madiba (Mandela) was released from prison, the first free election held, and the setting up of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was a time of amazing energy, hope, and good will. The highly troubled peoples finally seemed to have some sense of a common purpose and vision of better times to come. And with a stellar statesman like Madiba at the helm, what could possibly go wrong? Well, too much was resting on Madiba’s shoulders, and when he died, things started to unravel. I shall not bore you with details, read up for yourself if you care. But the short story is that without competent and strong leadership infighting, corruption, greed and hatred started to get the upper hand.

There are many articles and videos on the interweb to study, one I found interesting and scary was Lauren Southern’s “Farmlands” (from 2018):

I can promise you the situation has not improved in the 7 years since then. We also now have the collapse of Eskom (national electricity utility), where it is so run into the ground that it can no longer provide stable power to consumers and businesses.

I remember hearing about the government of Zambia reaching out to the white Afrikaaner farmers (from South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe) and inviting them to settle in Zambia. They got cheap/free farmland to help move agriculture forward to modern standards so Zambia could feed its people. A very smart move indeed, because these people know how to farm!

I will not engage in a mudslinging contest, and therefore not answer any responses unless they are showing genuine interest and curiosity, and is contributing to a better understanding of the issue. Then I’m all yours!
 

Good post. My question would be just how many white farmers have been killed? Was it a dozen, or thousands, as the lying goon claims?

[NickyLouie]

4 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Good post. My question would be just how many white farmers have been killed? Was it a dozen, or thousands, as the lying goon claims?

 

[billd766]

10 hours ago, thesetat said:

You mean, be diplomatic by lying to everyone and doing the opposite of what you say? Cover up the bad things and hide them using double talk or by averting the topics or outright silence? 

Sounds like you miss Biden as President. 

 

Very poor and off topic deflection.

 

The topic is about Trump and Ramaphosa and nothing to do with ex President Biden. 

 

Why is it that Trump supporters seem to be unable to stick to the topic?

[billd766]

10 hours ago, Tug said:

I’m waiting for a real world leader to just get fed up with the vulgarian and let the big mouth have it on the world stage on camera no mercy and just call this troll out.

Better to simply pack up and walk away, and completely ignore Trump and his acolytes.

[Patong2021]

20 hours ago, ThreeCardMonte said:

I’m not surprised.

 

They ruined Rhodesia.

 Spoken as a bonafide ignorant bigot. Zimbabwe was ruined by the arrival of Cecil Rhodes and his theft of African property in the 1880's.Rhodesia was never a legitimate country.  In 1965, it illegally acted on its own and rebelled against  its ruler the United Kingdom.

[BangkokReady]

15 hours ago, NickyLouie said:

 

 

 

 

 

And these people are actually trying to pretend that Trump is in the wrong.  The denial of non-Whites doing anything bad and Whites being victims is chilling.

[Tug]

4 minutes ago, billd766 said:

Better to simply pack up and walk away, and completely ignore Trump and his acolytes.

I know the problem is that the USA (for now) has to much economic clout no leader ( no much how they would like to absolutely humiliate this clown on the world stage) can do it because of the repercussions..….still a nice thought and if anyone deserves a good public dressing down it’s one Donald jhon trump!

[billd766]

8 hours ago, candide said:

Post to be ignored for being baseless, as usual! 😆

I ignore all his posts as he is on my ignore list. I only see any of his posts if somebody responds to him.

[merck]

Plaasmoorde: The Killing Fields (2018) Katie Hopkins' documentary about the South African farmers

 

[bannork]

Oh dear, the Trump fanboys club has been fooled again. When will they learn?

I suggest posters read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce81334je72o

Fact Checking Trump's Oval Office confontration with Ramaphos

The rows of white crosses along a rural road which Trump claimed were burial sites of over a thousand  white farmers were in fact a temporary memorial in protest against the murder of one white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were ambushed and shot dead on their premises in 2020.

The crosses are no longer there.

 Out of a total of 26,232 murders in South Africa last year, 44 were killings of people within the farming community and of those, only eight were of farmers.

Hardly figures of genocide!

 The image Trump showed which he claimed was evidence of white farmer killings in South Africa isn't from South Africa - it's actually from a report about women being killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo!

 

 

[spidermike007]

1 hour ago, billd766 said:

Better to simply pack up and walk away, and completely ignore Trump and his acolytes.

I tend to agree, so far Zelensky has been the biggest man to step to the plate, and he gave Trump quite a bit of pushback with his Ukraine related lies, and look at what he got for that.

 

Trump is a tiny, sad man and an incredible loser, and he has skin that's thinner than tissue paper, so anyone that annoys or offends him ends up paying a huge price for it, especially on live TV.

 

So it's best just to ignore the creep and allow him to make America less relevant again. 

[NickyLouie]

16 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

 

Trump is a tiny, sad man and an incredible loser, 

 

spidermike007 : You just described your reality.

 

 

 

[candide]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Good post. My question would be just how many white farmers have been killed? Was it a dozen, or thousands, as the lying goon claims?

According to the article I linked, there are around 50 farmers killed every year, both white and black.

[candide]

1 hour ago, bannork said:

Oh dear, the Trump fanboys club has been fooled again. When will they learn?

I suggest posters read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce81334je72o

Fact Checking Trump's Oval Office confontration with Ramaphos

The rows of white crosses along a rural road which Trump claimed were burial sites of over a thousand  white farmers were in fact a temporary memorial in protest against the murder of one white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were ambushed and shot dead on their premises in 2020.

The crosses are no longer there.

 Out of a total of 26,232 murders in South Africa last year, 44 were killings of people within the farming community and of those, only eight were of farmers.

Hardly figures of genocide!

 The image Trump showed which he claimed was evidence of white farmer killings in South Africa isn't from South Africa - it's actually from a report about women being killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo!

 

 

How do you dare to post facts? You will get thumbs down from MAGA posters for this affront! 😆

[candide]

9 hours ago, NickyLouie said:

 

Who's laughing now? 🤣

 

Trump displays DRC visual as proof of South African 'genocide'

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-displays-drc-visual-proof-190611025.html

[Dan O]

18 hours ago, NickyLouie said:

 

Visit Suid Afrika before running your mouth and looking like a fool.

 

https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/05/president-trump-is-right-about-whats-happening-in-south-africa/

 

 

 

 

Killing isnt ever right no matter the race or country but I guess White South Africans dont like being treated like they treated Black South Africans just a few short decades ago do they? 

[Dan O]

2 hours ago, bannork said:

Oh dear, the Trump fanboys club has been fooled again. When will they learn?

I suggest posters read https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce81334je72o

Fact Checking Trump's Oval Office confontration with Ramaphos

The rows of white crosses along a rural road which Trump claimed were burial sites of over a thousand  white farmers were in fact a temporary memorial in protest against the murder of one white farming couple Glen and Vida Rafferty, who were ambushed and shot dead on their premises in 2020.

The crosses are no longer there.

 Out of a total of 26,232 murders in South Africa last year, 44 were killings of people within the farming community and of those, only eight were of farmers.

Hardly figures of genocide!

 The image Trump showed which he claimed was evidence of white farmer killings in South Africa isn't from South Africa - it's actually from a report about women being killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo!

 

 

Now, Now your just gonna confuse the mentally feeble minded trumpettes that are being duped by a conman. The verbal diarrhea they will spew to claim your facts are propaganda or MSM lies will quickly fill the pages although they wont be able to provide any facts, just somehow blame Biden for creating the situation

[bannork]

18 minutes ago, Dan O said:

Now, Now your just gonna confuse the mentally feeble minded trumpettes that are being duped by a conman. The verbal diarrhea they will spew to claim your facts are propaganda or MSM lies will quickly fill the pages although they wont be able to provide any facts, just somehow blame Biden for creating the situation

After all these years of so many lies, mistruths, misinformation, exaggeration- in other words steaming horse manure, how can the Trump fanboys still believe a word he says? 

Beyond belief.

[Dan O]

30 minutes ago, bannork said:

After all these years of so many lies, mistruths, misinformation, exaggeration- in other words steaming horse manure, how can the Trump fanboys still believe a word he says? 

Beyond belief.

It does baffle the imagination and question the mentality of the hardcore cultist. I have come to conclude that the majority are either a similar flawed character type or suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and cant admit to their stupidity.

[Dan O]

4 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

get a grip brother

I dont hear any facts being presented by you or the other minions that have been duped by the conman trump. Pony up with some facts and truth to counter Mike's post or put up or shut up as they say.

[HappyExpat57]

8 hours ago, still kicking said:

Who said he is normal?

Unfortunately, millions of brain-dead MAGAts consider him not just normal, he is their chosen messiah who walks six inches ABOVE the water. Every "thumbs down" reaction I will receive for this post is one of those mental zombies.

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, candide said:

According to the article I linked, there are around 50 farmers killed every year, both white and black.

Okay that makes sense, however Trump failed to mention the black farmers as they just simply don't count. In his mind they are people of color, and therefore irrelevant and infinitely less important than white folks. He continues to be the most divisive and hate filled president in American history. 

[spidermike007]

3 hours ago, NickyLouie said:

 

spidermike007 : You just described your reality.

 

 

 

Nah. He doesn't drive me crazy, I actually find him quite amusing, and I just like many others enjoy commenting on his inane behavior and his daily silliness.