The face-off between US President Donald Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office was less a diplomatic exchange and more a carefully choreographed performance designed to provoke, posture, and polarise. In a dramatic setting involving dimmed lights, video screenings, and clippings of questionable provenance, Mr Trump cornered his counterpart with incendiary claims about the “persecution” of white farmers in South Africa ~ allegations widely dismissed by international observers as exaggerated or unfounded. What made this encounter more revealing than inflammatory, however, was Mr Ramaphosa’s carefully calibrated response.

Faced with a barrage of visual and rhetorical provocation, he chose not to directly repudiate the video’s content. Instead, he contextualized it. The incendiary chants, he explained, came from fringe political elements with no sway over national policy. He acknowledged the reality of criminal violence in........

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