TRUMP GETROEF

STELLENBOSCH billionaire Johann Rubert has become the voice of the Cape Flats overnight.

The founder of Richemont and chairman of Remgro tackled the issue of gang crime and violence as part of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s delegation in the explosive showdown with US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday night.

Speaking in the White House’s Oval Office, Rubert hit back at Trump's claims of the SA government targeting Afrikaners in a “White Genocide”, saying all the mense of Mzansi are suffering at the hands of criminals. 

He criticised the local leadership, essentially Democratic Alliance leader John Steenhuisen, who was also at the meeting, for downplaying the severity of crime in the Western Cape.

Rupert said: “Mr. Steenhuisen won’t admit it, but he runs the Western Cape where I live, and the biggest murder rate is in the Cape Flats. We’ve got gang warfare like your MS-13 (gang). 

“We’ve got equivalents there.”

He was praised by Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie on X, who tweeted: “Rupert is not who we think he is; he is a true Patriot. He loves this country, and I wanna be the first to admit that I was wrong about him.”

Rupert joined Ramaphosa, Steenhuisen and other ministers as Trump used videos of EFF leader Julius Malema’s chants of “Kill the Boer” and MKP members calling for the redistribution of land as “proof” of Afrikaner persecution.

Trump challenged Ramaphosa on his Land Expropriation Act, signed into law this January, saying that whites are having their land taken from them. 

After welcoming 55 “refugees” to the US on Sunday, he says: “We have thousands of people trying to come into our country because they fear they are going to be killed, and their land is going to be confiscated.

“You are taking people’s land away, and those people, in many cases, are being executed. They happen to be white, and most of them happen to be farmers.”

President Cyril Ramaphosa responded firmly, emphasising that South Africa’s Constitution protects land ownership while seeking to address historical injustices.

He said: “And we are seeking to address the injustices of the past within the rule of law.”