South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is in the United States, where he is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump on May 21, in a crucial face-to-face talk that will set the tone for future relations between the two countries.

It will be the first time Trump has hosted an African leader at the White House since he took office in January. Trump never visited Africa during his first term. On the other hand, Ramaphosa's last working visit to Washington was in 2022 when former US President Joe Biden was still in office.

But since early 2025, relations between the United States and South Africa have deteriorated rapidly, driven by ideological differences, geopolitical alliances, and domestic policy conflicts.

"The president's visit to the US provides a platform to reset the strategic relationship between the two countries," the South African presidency said in a statement.

However, some analysts have warned that Ramaphosa's three-day visit is unlikely to be easy, with fears it could turn hostile or confrontational.

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"The objective is to try to clean up South Africa's image and remove the perception that Trump is putting forward about South Africa as a country where a genocide against white Afrikaaners is taking place," Fredson Guilengue from the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Johannesburg told........

© Deutsche Welle