United States (US) President Donald Trump has said that South Africa will not be invited to participate in next year’s Group of 20 (G20) summit in Florida, after Washington boycotted last week’s leaders’ summit in Johannesburg — a move the African nation described as “punitive”.
According to Reuters, G20 leaders adopted a declaration on Saturday (22) addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges despite US objections, prompting the White House to accuse South Africa of weaponising its leadership of the group this year.
“At the end of the G20, South Africa refused to hand over the presidency of the forum to a senior representative of our embassy in the US, who attended the closing ceremony,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Wednesday (26), adding that “therefore, under my direction, South Africa will not receive an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be held in the great city of Miami, Florida, next year.”
The office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called Trump’s post “regrettable”.
Ramaphosa said that since the US delegation did not attend last week’s summit, “the instruments of the G20 presidency were duly handed to an official from the US Embassy at the headquarters of South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation.”
President Trump’s Criticism of South Africa
Since taking office for the second time in January this year, Trump has repeatedly criticised the South African Government’s domestic and foreign policies.
“It is regrettable that, despite the efforts and numerous attempts by President Ramaphosa and his Administration to restore diplomatic relations with the US, President Trump continues to impose punitive measures on South Africa based on inaccurate and distorted information about our country,” Ramaphosa’s office said.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that South Africa’s black-majority government persecutes the white minority and that there has been a genocide of white farmers in the country — allegations that have been widely debunked. In a White House meeting in May, the US leader confronted his South African counterpart with false allegations of white genocide.
Additionally, Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his Government “will suspend all payments and subsidies” to South Africa, with immediate effect. In February, he signed an executive order to cut financial assistance to the African country, citing disapproval of its land reform policy and its genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Washington’s ally, Israel.
