US president Trump hasn't admitted there's no 'white genocide' in South Africa, screenshot doctored
IN SHORT: What appears to be a social media post from Donald Trump is circulating on social media, with a statement reversing his previous position on South Africa. But the screenshot has been clumsily Photoshopped and isn't of a real Truth Social post.
US president Donald Trump has repeatedly made the unfounded claim that a "genocide" is taking place in South Africa. He has claimed that white South African farmers, particularly Afrikaans-speakers, are being killed at much higher rates than other South Africans and are legally persecuted by the South African government.
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Africa Check debunked several claims Trump made about this supposed genocide during a May 2025 meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. There is no evidence that white farmers in South Africa are more likely to be murdered than other groups.
Allegations of a white genocide have links to a white supremacist theory that white people around the world are being deliberately killed according to the plans of a powerful and secretive group. (Usually, the blame is placed on Jewish people.)
In June 2025, a number of social media users shared what appeared to be evidence of Trump retracting his previous claims, in a screenshot of a Trump post reading "There's no WHITE GENOCIDE in 🇿🇦", using an emoji of the South African flag.
Some of those who shared the post called it "breaking news" or cited what appear to be news organisations.
But is this screenshot even real? Let's explain how to spot a fake.
Twitter, X or Truth Social post?
Trump was a frequent user of Twitter in the lead up to and during his first presidential term, which ended in January 2021. However, in that month his personal account was banned from the platform for violating its policies through several posts apparently endorsing riots at the US Capitol building, the meeting place of the legislative branch of the US government.
On 6 January rioters forced their way into the building in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 US election. (Trump himself has frequently questioned the legitimacy of US elections and has made repeated false claims that he won the 2020 election, calling his loss "a fraud on the American public".)
After Trump's suspension from Twitter, and similar bans from other social media platforms, the Trump Media and Technology Group launched a competitor called Truth Social, advertised as Trump's new primary home on social media.
In late 2022, then Trump ally Elon Musk purchased Twitter, renaming it X in mid-2023. He reinstated Trump's account, although Trump has continued to use Truth Social almost exclusively. Many posts on his X account are screenshots of Truth Social posts.
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The "no white genocide" image appears to show a Truth Social post.
Screenshot faked
The suspicious post uses the same handle, @realDonaldTrump, and profile picture as Trump's official Truth Social account, although it isn't a perfect match for the real thing.
First, the fake post does not appear on Trump's account. Nor does it appear in archived versions of Trump's Truth Social page.
There are also indicators within the screenshot that it has been edited. The colour of the text in the post is a lighter grey than the black used by Truth Social. While Truth Social posts are displayed in a box that neatly fit the contents of the post, this particular screenshot shows a lot of white space around the text.
There is also other evidence of tampering: what appears to be a fragment of text has not been properly erased or covered up.
Often, the best way to spot these kinds of inconsistencies is to compare a suspicious screenshot to a post that you know to be genuine. The graphic below compares the fake screenshot to a genuine Trump post that was widely reported on by reliable news outlets, and is visible on his Truth Social profile, at time of writing. Side by side, it is easier to spot small differences like the differences in text colours.
The screenshot circulating on social media is not a genuine post from Donald Trump and there is no evidence that he has admitted his claims of a white South African genocide are untrue.
