On Wednesday, a week after the US granted asylum to nearly 60 Afrikaners - a move that rankled South Africa - President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the White House to reset the countries' relations.

Instead, Trump surprised Ramaphosa during a live news conference with widely discredited claims of a "white genocide" in South Africa.

He played a video showing an exhibit during a protest of several crosses lining a road - claiming they were burial sites for murdered white farmers.

Trump said he did not know where in South Africa it was filmed. The crosses, in fact, are not actual graves, but appear to be from a 2020 protest after a farming couple was killed in KwaZulu-Natal province. Organisers said at the time that they are an exhibit representing farmers killed over years.

Before Wednesday's White House meeting, South Africa's leader stressed that improving trade relations with the US was his priority. South African exports into the US face a 30% tariff once a pause on Trump's new import taxes ends in July.

Ramaphosa hoped to charm Trump during the meeting, bringing along two famous South African golfers and gifting him a huge book featuring his country's golf courses.

The meeting came days after the arrival of 59 white South Africans in the US, where they were granted refugee status. Ramaphosa said at the time they were "cowards".

Still, the Oval Office meeting began cordially, until Trump asked for the lighting to be lowered for a video presentation. The mood shifted.

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The film featured the voice of leading South African opposition figure Julius Malema singing: "Shoot the Boer [Afrikaner], Shoot the farmer". It then showed a field of crosses, which the US president, talking over the images, said was a burial site of white farmers.

He handed Ramaphosa what appeared to be print-outs of stories of white people being attacked in South Africa. Trump said that he would seek an "explanation" from his guest on claims of white "genocide" in South Africa, which have been widely discredited.

Ramaphosa responded to the opposition chants in the video, saying, "What you saw - the speeches that were made... that is not government policy. We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves."

"Our government policy is completely against what he [Malema] was saying even in the parliament and they are a small minority party, which is allowed to exist according to our constitution."