Ambush.
That is the word most used by US media to describe yesterday's explosive White House confrontation between President Donald Trump and his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa.
The last time we had seen anything like this was February’s disastrous meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
But while the Zelensky meeting seems to have just taken a bad turn because the press conference and show element of it had gone on far too long, the Ramaphosa meeting was a pre-planned event, complete with audio visual presentation and printed matter.
What happened was intentional.
Mr Ramaphosa was not unprepared - he had brought along some additions to his normal delegation designed to please Mr Trump, no doubt hoping to blunt the force of the attack he pretty much knew was coming.
These additions came in the form of golfers Retief Goosen and Ernie Els - who are known to President Trump - are representatives of his favourite sport, and are white South Africans with farming connections.
Read more: Trump confronts Ramaphosa with false genocide claims
John Steenhuisen, another white South African, the minister for agriculture and leader of the Democratic Alliance, a party that has spent 30 years in opposition to the ANC, but which went into Mr Ramaphosa’s government last year.
While President Trump had his own South African consigliere - Elon Musk - present, Mr Ramaphosa brought along the second richest South African, second after Mr Musk, Johann Rupert.
He owns a Swiss-based luxury goods company Richemont, whose brands include Cartier, Dunhill, Van Cleef & Arpels, Montblanc and several Swiss watch brands. It is the second biggest luxury goods company in the world, and it has made him a billionaire. Mr Trump likes billionaires.
President Trump's team included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, all seated on a couch to the president's left.
Despite this preparation, President Ramaphosa was probably not expecting the lights to dim in the Oval Office and for a video presentation lasting several minutes to be shown. Yet it was.
The video depicted the leaders of two small opposition parties, Jacob Zuma - the former president, and Julius Malema, President and "Commander in Chief" of the Economic Freedom Fighters - a far left communist party whose members often wear red berets and combat clothing. He urged the expropriation of white-owned farmland and chanted "Kill the Boer" in the video.
Last week a group of about 50 Afrikaners arrived in the US as refugees - about the only refugee group who are getting access to the US at the moment. President Trump told his counterpart the US always takes in people who are fleeing oppression or genocide.
On Monday, Julius Malema called for the addresses of the Afrikaner refugees in the US, saying their farmland should be redistributed to people who wanted to work it, and that it should not be left idle. But he also said he doubted they were real farmers.
"If they are real farmers, why is the media not giving us the list of the farms that were left by farmers who went to America? Nothing looked like a farmer among those people. They looked like car guards, that’s why they didn’t have the land," he said.
President Ramaphosa pushed back against President Trump's attack - gently, politely, but was often interrupted by a clearly impatient US president.
Mr Ramaphosa’s main defence to the charge was that South Africa does not commit genocide, and does not expropriate white farmers' land or any farmers' land.
He then called on his white agriculture minister, Mr Steenhuisen, to speak.
He spoke powerfully, telling President Trump that South Africa has a dreadful crime problem.
"I don't think anyone wants to candy coat it, and it requires a lot of effort to get on top of it.
"It's going to require more policing resources. It's going to require a different strategy to be able to deal with it. But certainly the majority of South Africa's commercial and small holder farmers really do want to stay in South Africa and make it work," he added.
"It affects all farmers in South Africa, particularly stock theft. It has a disproportionate effect on small black farmers," Mr Steenhuisen said.
Mr Musk, standing behind the couch to the left of President Trump, nodded in agreement during Mr Steenhuisen’s intervention.
Mr Goosen did not candy coat his account of his family's troubles living in rural South Africa.
"My dad was a property developer as well as a part-time farmer. And yeah, some of his buddy farmers got killed. The farm is still going.
"My brothers run it, but it's a constant battle with farms. They are trying to burn the farms down to chase you away. So it is a concern to try and make a living as a farmer," he added.
He told President Trump that the country needs strong, well run farms to produce the food it needs to eat - food and water are essential to life.
The US president asked about the water situation.
Golfer Retief Goosen told him it was good, but comes from a borehole, "but obviously it's a struggle to get the water out when the equipment to pump it is being stolen all the time," he said.
"Does your brother feel safe on the farm?" President Trump asked.
"They live behind electric fences, but it is a constant concern whenever you leave that something could happen. So, it is difficult. Both of them were attacked in their houses, our mum was attacked in her home when she was 80. So it's difficult," Mr Goosen said.
And that was supposed to be the pro-government message, from a member of Mr Ramaphosa’s delegation.
The object was to say there is no state sponsored genocide of white farmers in South Africa, just a really, really bad crime problem that affects everyone.
On an average day, South Africa records almost as many murders as Ireland did in the whole of last year (77).
Last year South Africa recorded 26,232 homicides - about 72 killings a day.
That is with a population of 63 million.
England and Wales, with a comparable population of 61 million recorded 583 murders, about 1.6 killings per day.
South Africa had more murders than the US - which recorded 24,849 homicides last year - even though the US population is almost five-and-a-half times bigger than South Africa’s.
Police statistics in South Africa do not record the racial identity of victims of crime, but very few farmers were killed last year. Just eight, according to police statistics reported by Reuters. And most of the farmers are, as President Trump noted, white.
There were 44 deaths reported in attacks on farm communities, of which eight were farmers.
The majority of farm workers in South Africa are black. So it is likely that the majority of victims of agrarian violence in the country are black, not white.
The land law introduced last year that permits, under certain circumstances, the expropriation without compensation of land for specified public purposes has been strongly criticised by President Trump.
Watch: Video played in Oval Office during meeting between Donald Trump and Cyril Ramaphosa
President Ramaphosa said it was like "eminent domain", a legal provision in US law that also allows the government to expropriate land for special purposes without compensation. It is normally used to break logjams over infrastructure projects.
The New York Times reported on one such use of eminent domain by President Trump himself to expropriate farmland in south Texas during his first term, to build part of the border wall with Mexico.
Mr Trump became interested in the idea of a South African genocide of white South Africans during his first term, after seeing a report by Tucker Carson on Fox News.
He ordered then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate, but little more was heard of it, until he returned to power in January.
Within weeks he had expelled the South African ambassador, cut off US aid to the country and threatened a boycott of G20 events in South Africa.
The current Secretary of State has already skipped a G20 foreign ministers meeting.
President Ramaphosa wanted to reset relations with the US yesterday, and hoped to persuade President Trump to reconsider and attend the G20 summit later in the year.
The US is the next presidency of the organisation, and Mr Ramaphosa wants to "hand it over in good shape" to Mr Trump, as he put it himself.
He also handed over a gift to the US President, a weighty tome on South African golf courses weighing all of 14kg.
He quipped: "I wish I had a plane to give you".
After yesterday's ambush in the Oval Office, it remains to be seen what shape the hoped-for reset is in, whether the G20 presidency of South Africa will be badly hobbled, and whether President Trump continues to admit Afrikaners on refugee programmes.
