INTERNACIONAL
Trump’s criticism of South Africa’s violent crime crisis receives unexpected local support
JOHANNESBURG — South Africans welcomed President Donald Trump’s highly critical Oval Office statements Wednesday about killings in the country, according to analysts.
The President showed video clips and gave South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa a sheaf of news clippings he said show farm murders.
Many believe this «ambush» by President Trump toward the South African leader is good for the country, because it throws a sharp light on the darkness that is the high level of killings in the country, and how President Ramaphosa’s government is said to be failing to adequately tackle it.
Approximately 6,953 people of all races were murdered in South Africa in just the last three months of 2024, according to police statistics. That is 76 people on average killed every day.
TRUMP CONFRONTS SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT WITH VIDEO ON TREATMENT OF WHITE FARMERS
President Donald Trump, left, shows documents as he meets South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (AP/Evan Vucci)
Additionally, killers are literally getting away with murder. It was reported that between 2019 and 2022 only 12% of murder prosecutions resulted in a conviction.
«President Trump’s focus on violent crime in South Africa is a strong positive to emerge from the Oval Office meeting,» analyst Frans Cronje told Fox News Digital.
Cronje, president of the Washington-based Yorktown Foundation for Freedom, added, «South Africa has averaged an intentional homicide rate of around 40 homicides per 100 000 residents since becoming a democracy in 1994.»
He continued, «the global figure is nearer 4/100 000. More people are murdered in South Africa annually, with its population of just over 60 million, than across the entire Western world, with its population of almost a billion people.»
A plainclothes police officer with the Johannesburg Metro Police Department questions a man found inside a dilapidated building used as a shelter in Johannesburg on May 15, 2023. (Photo by MICHELE SPATARI/AFP via Getty Images)
At home, the South African government has been harshly and repeatedly criticized for not tackling violent crime effectively.
Cronje said, «The South African government has failed the people of the country in not taking the blight of criminal violence seriously, and external U.S. pressure to address the violence as a precondition for any major investment treaties is pressure that domestic South African activists may employ to address their government’s neglect.»
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Crosses are planted on a hillside at the White Cross Monument, each one marking a White farmer who has been killed in a farm murder, on Oct. 31, 2017 in Ysterberg, near Langebaan, South Africa. A long campaign of violence against the country’s farmers, who are largely White, has inflamed political and racial tensions nearly a quarter-of-a-century after the fall of apartheid. (GULSHAN KHAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Analyst Max Meizlish told Fox News Digital, «It’s clear that decades of corruption in South Africa have hollowed out the state’s ability to provide even the most basic services — from reliable water and electricity, to a functioning police force and equal protection under the law.»
Meizlish, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, added that in the election here last year, «the ANC lost its national majority for the first time since the end of apartheid.» The African National Congress (ANC) government took power in 1994.
«The Ramaphosa government is devoting more time and resources to courting BRICS allies like China, Russia, and Iran, than to restoring order at home.
«President Trump is right to demand change from Ramaphosa on everything from land reform and human rights abuses to South Africa’s growing alignment with America’s adversaries,» he stated.
Perhaps off script, right inside the Oval Office last Wednesday, Zingiswa Losi, president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, spoke out about other serious crimes going virtually unchecked. «There is no doubt about it that we are a violent nation,» she told President Trump and the others crammed into the room. She added, «if you go into the rural areas where (there is a) Black majority, you would see women, elderly, being raped, being killed, being murdered.»
President of the ruling African National Congress and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks to supporters during the ANC Siyanqoba Rally held at FNB Stadium on May 25, 2024 in Johannesburg. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
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Losi continued, «And the problem in South Africa, it is not necessarily about race, but it is about crime. And we think that we are here to say, how do we both nations work together to reset, to really talk about investment … to really address the levels of crime that we have in our country. «
Sources say that after previously refusing to let Elon Musk bring his Starlink satellite communications system into South Africa, citing the need for local partial ownership, Ramaphosa and his advisors have now realized that Starlink’s data services could help bring greater security, particularly to rural areas of the country.
In crime statistics for the first three months of this year released on Friday, which critics say are not verified independently, the Police Minister claimed five of the six people killed on farms were Black, and one was White.
President Donald Trump, right, meets South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (AP/Evan Vucci)
However, with little effective police protection in the cities, and even less in the rural areas, a Black farmer’s comment sums up the worries of many South Africans today. Standing at the funeral of a rural White farmer, he said to an Institute of Race Relations representative «Although he’s White, we don’t look at the color. We are doing the same thing. Next time it’s going to be me.»
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Fox News Digital reached out to the South African government for comment, but they did not respond.
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A government shutdown, big or small, is usually a front-and-center issue for lawmakers — but the most recent partial closure could be put on the back burner as Congress returns to several issues in Washington.
Senate Democrats and the White House are still at odds over funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as the shutdown dragged into its tenth day. Neither side is budging, with the most recent concrete action coming early last week.
Trump, who proved pivotal in striking a funding truce with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in January, was not directly involved in recent negotiations.
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President Donald Trump has not had any «direct conversations or correspondence» with congressional Democrats recently. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press )
Trump has not had any «direct conversations or correspondence» with congressional Democrats recently, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, noting that the White House and its representatives have been handling the dialogue.
«But, of course, Democrats are the reason that the Department of Homeland Security is currently shut down,» she said. «They have chosen to act against the American people for political reasons.»
Senate Democrats offered a counter to the White House’s own counterproposal, which quickly was rejected as «unserious» by Leavitt. It’s a peculiar instance, given that this is the third shutdown during Trump’s second term, and neither side appears to be in a particular rush to end it.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus have not relented in their position as DHS enters its tenth day of being shut down. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital that there’s «some room for give and take» in the negotiations, but remained firm in the GOP’s positioning against requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from getting judicial warrants, unmasking or other reforms sought by Democrats that could increase risks for agents in the field.
«I felt like, you know, the last offer the White House put out there was a really — it was a good faith one, and it was clear to me that they’re attempting, in every way, to try and land this thing so we can get DHS funded,» Thune said.
Funding the agency will be a top priority for the upper chamber, but they’ll be delayed because of winter storms descending on the East Coast. The weather has caused the Senate to delay a vote on the original DHS spending bill until Tuesday night, ahead of Trump’s State of the Union address.
There are other issues that could get in the way of hashing out a deal, including a possible conflict with Iran and Trump’s desire to move ahead with tariffs without congressional approval.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., warned that Senate Democrats were trying to tie up Republicans from hitting the campaign trail ahead of the pivotal 2026 midterm cycle. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Trump told reporters Friday that he was «considering» a limited military strike against Iran, which already has riled up some in Congress, who are demanding that lawmakers get a say on whether the U.S. strikes.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a statement that he has a war powers resolution to block an attack on Iran filed and ready, and challenged his colleagues to vote against it.
«If some of my colleagues support war, then they should have the guts to vote for the war and to be held accountable by their constituents, rather than hiding under their desks,» Kaine said.
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On the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling to torpedo his sweeping duties, Trump is considering bypassing Congress to move ahead with another set of global 10% tariffs.
That comes as some Republicans are quietly celebrating the end of the duties, and others are open to working with the administration on a path forward for trade policy.
On tariffs, a Republican aide told Fox News that the GOP was «waiting to see what POTUS does next.»
«The State of the Union should be interesting,» they said.
politics,senate,government shutdown,homeland security
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Following the reported killing of major cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera, known as El Mencho, multiple American tourists vacationing in Puerto Vallarta told Fox News Digital they unexpectedly found themselves in the middle of a violent cartel retaliation.
As airlines canceled flights and authorities issued shelter-in-place orders, stranded visitors reported cars set ablaze, suspected cartel members blocking major roads, and stores ransacked by looters — scenes some witnesses said made parts of the popular resort city feel like «a war breaking out in the streets.»
Witnesses said they were forced to evacuate their rooms, manage with limited hotel food, and even venture outside in search of meals while waiting for Mexican authorities to regain control of the city.
Staying at an Airbnb near a main road, Eugene Marchenko, 37, of Charleston, South Carolina, told Fox News Digital he woke up to blaring horns and saw six cars completely engulfed in flames just outside his balcony. He and his wife, who had arrived in Mexico only a day earlier, were forced to evacuate for several hours, fearing that a nearby fuel tanker, also ablaze, could explode.
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«I looked down and they’re completely engulfed in flames,» Marchenko said. «It was six cars in total that burned and one fuel tanker.»
He said he watched a neighbor’s video showing men he believed to be cartel members forcing people out of their vehicles, then pouring gasoline and setting the cars on fire.
«They told the people to leave,» Marchenko said. «Then they were taking the gas and pouring the gas on the vehicle and waiting until everybody was clear before they were setting it on fire.»
Later in the afternoon, Marchenko ventured out to find food and said he saw pharmacies and corner stores completely burned down, adding that younger crowds had broken into nearby buildings to loot beer and cigarettes.
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Vehicles appear to carry multiple armed forces in Puerto Vallarta. (Fox News Digital)
Videos obtained by Fox News Digital show a helicopter hovering above his building, circling as if searching for someone, while Mexican armed forces and armored vehicles moved through the streets below.
Public transportation and Ubers had come to a complete halt, Marchenko added, saying that even if flights resume, he is unsure how they would reach the airport.
Despite the chaos, Marchenko noted that no one appeared to panic.
«There’s definitely not any panic from almost nobody here,» he said. «I think it’s interesting, almost everybody was just annoyed more than anything.»
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A plume of smoke rises in Puerto Vallarta on Feb. 22, 2026. (Fox News Digital)
Adriana Belli, 49, another visitor from Miami, told Fox News Digital that she had planned to spend over a week in Mexico to attend a wedding in Guadalajara and celebrate a friend’s birthday in Mexico City.
Belli said the sudden outbreak of violence was especially shocking, noting that she had spoken with American tourists staying at her Marriott resort who insisted the area was extremely safe after visiting Puerto Vallarta for 24 years.
She added that guests who had gone to the airport were under lockdown and were managing with the limited food available.
«A lot of the other tourists who had early morning flights were actually able to get to the airport, but they are now locked down in the airport and unable to leave,» she said. «So what we heard from other guests is they are just sort of surviving off of granola bars.»
A fuel tanker was set ablaze near a gas station in Puerto Vallarta on Feb. 22, 2026. (Fox News Digital)
Another source staying at a separate resort told Fox News Digital that restaurants and room service had been shut down. Guests were brought to the lobby for what was described as «the last bit of food.»
He added that this was the first trip where he and his wife were away from their 4-year-old son, and that he had to call home to tell family members where to find their will.
«This is the first time we’ve ever been away from him. My wife was saying, ‘We’re never leaving him again,’» he said. «I had to call my mom today and, you know, just tell her, ‘Look, here’s where my will is. We just created this. I don’t want you to panic, but I may need you to stay a couple days extra with my son.’»
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He added that, despite the area appearing like a war zone, he is remaining optimistic that the authorities will restore order in the coming days.
Mexico’s Defense Department said Sunday that Oseguera was killed in a military operation. The news reportedly triggered widespread unrest and uncertainty across multiple states as Mexican authorities worked to stabilize the region.
location mexico,mexican cartel violence,world,latin america
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