President Donald Trump faced more accusations of racism late Wednesday after he tweeted about white farmers in South Africa.
In an apparent response to a segment on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, Trump said he’d asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures”:
Fellow tweeters accused Trump of promoting the white nationalist talking point that the South African government was waging a war against whites.
Khusela Diko, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokeswoman, told Reuters that Trump was “misinformed” about the country’s planned land reforms and that its government would “take up the matter through diplomatic channels.”
“South Africa totally rejects this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past,” the South African government tweeted. “South Africa will speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide our nation.”
Other tweeters saw Trump’s tweet as a “thumbs-up” to right-wing extremists and an attempt to distract people from the conviction of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight charges and his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleading guilty to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations: