The president and his allies accuse South Africa of discriminating against and killing white people and warn that the same could happen in America unless efforts to promote diversity are stopped.
To hear President Trump and some of his closest supporters tell it, South Africa is a terrible place for white people. They face discrimination, are jobless, and live under constant threat of violence or having their land stolen by a corrupt, black-led government that has left the country in disarray.
The data suggests otherwise. Although white people make up 7 percent of the country's population, they own at least half of South Africa's land. Police statistics do not show that they are more vulnerable to violent crime than other people. And white South Africans perform far better than blacks on almost every measure of the economic scale.
But Mr. Trump and his allies are pushing their own version of events in South Africa to push the argument at home: If the United States does not curb its efforts to promote diversity, America will become a hotbed of dysfunction and discrimination against whites.
“It plays on the fears of white people in America and other countries: ‘We white people are being threatened,’” said Max du Preez, a white South African writer and historian, of Mr. Trump’s characterization of his country.
However, Mr du Preez added, white people have prospered since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Parallels between South Africa's efforts to right the injustices of apartheid and the long struggle in the United States to end slavery, Jim Crow laws and other forms of racial discrimination have become commonplace among some Trump supporters.
