President Donald Trump showed an image of violence in Congo, not South Africa, to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in an Oval Office meeting.

Donald Trump has long been preoccupied with South Africa’s most fraught and emotional domestic policy issue: land. In his first term the US president directed his then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — via Twitter — to “closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures” and the supposed “large-scale killing of farmers”.

Ramaphosa enjoyed a brief wave of sympathy after his White House ambush but he is a problematic leader, writes Sizwe Mpofu Walsh.