Trump's Fake South Africa

But perhaps let's start on the show, Zooks, by talking of the fact that we awoke this morning to an announcement from Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, that there'd be a brand new visa regime targeting South Africans.

It was an intemperate response that he published.

I mean, can I quote from it? He said, as Donald Trump has made clear, the South African people have been failed by a government that is destroying its economy through an obsessive pursuit of racial grievance against the Afrikaner minority.

The South African government has consistently failed to adequately address rural crime, violence, and dehumanizing rhetoric and race-based discrimination.

And so he said he's announcing a new visa restriction policy targeting foreign nationals who enact or enable policies that promote this sort of discrimination.

Now, Zooks, I mean, this is a fictional construct in the first place, and it has been pointed out numerous times by everyone, and yet America is doubling down on that.

Is that a surprise?

Not really, Rob.

I mean, remember we had a situation when Naledi Pando, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, was saying that the visa has been revoked in the U.S., which was to be expected.

One would think that it's probably linked to South Africa's case against Israel.

It's not clear now who's going to be, it's not going to be a blanket ban of ANC people.

It's apparently targeted at individuals and AfriForum is quite happy because that's what they wanted.

They're saying don't punish the people of South Africa, don't punish the South African government, just target certain individuals.

The list is not out as who is really affected.

That's going to be interesting.

The American ambassador to South Africa, Brett Bozo, is it Bonzo? Not Bonzo, probably.

I don't know how to pronounce the name.

Okay, it's probably not Bozo.

He published a statement as well on Twitter where he said that the time for talking is over, the time for endless dialogue has run its course.

America wants strong relations with the South African government, but the South African government has shown it doesn't care for that.

As a result, I've attempted time and again – to install this kind of dialogue, and it just has gone nowhere.

So the results are going to be severe.

Patrick, to bring

you

in on this, I mean, seen from outside the country, you know, the danger is that this view of what's happening in South Africa, which is distorted and is inaccurate, is being perpetuated by the US government.