Zimbabwe's white farmers: Will Trump help or hinder their compensation battle?

They have engaged a lobbying firm with close ties to the US president to argue their case.

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After all, some of them argue, the US president intervened last year to fight for the rights of white farmers in neighbouring South Africa, where he feels they are being "persecuted" because of their race - claims that have been widely discredited.

Trump has offered members of South Africa's white Afrikaner community, many of whom are farmers, refugee status in the US.

Most of the Zimbabwean farmers are not keen to go down that route - they just want their government to honour a deal made in 2020 by Mugabe's successor, and former deputy, President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

And some see Zimbabwe's vast and untapped deposits of rare-earth minerals and the transactional nature of Trump's politics as key to unlocking the cash.