As the relationship between the two countries continues to be strained, US President Donald Trump has announced he will prevent South Africa from attending the G20 summit in the coming year.
19 of the Group of 20 countries, plus the European Union, and the current African Union, make up the group. The group’s members meet throughout the year, but a country that holds its presidency also holds an annual summit.
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Trump made the decision to abstain from the G20 summit that was being held last week in Johannesburg, South Africa. He has charged that the nation is staging a “white genocide” against white farmers and communities.
The US will host the G20 summit in 2015 as the group’s next leader.
Trump claimed in a post earlier this month that it was “total disgrace” that South Africa’s hosting of this year’s summit, the first to be held in an African country, was “total disgrace.”
Trump reiterates a claim that South Africa has condemned and for which there is no proof, saying that “Afrikaners are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.”
As long as these human rights abuses continue, no US government official will be present. The 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida is a “dream come true” event I’m hosting. he continued.
Trump made the announcement on Wednesday that South Africa would not be invited to the upcoming G20 summit in another Truth Social post.
Trump’s statement: What and why?
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ended the two-day summit last weekend without passing the gift, as customary, to the next nation taking the presidency.
In his closing remarks on Sunday, Ramaphosa said, “This summit officially closes this summit and moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we will see each other again next year.”
He claimed Ramaphosa refused to hand the gift to the person despite Trump’s claim that he had sent one from the US embassy in South Africa at the last minute.
Trump also made repeated claims on Wednesday that the US did not travel to the summit because, in his view, the government of South Africa had refused to “acknowledge or address the horrific Human Rights abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers.”
They are killing white people and randomly allowing them to rob their farms, to put it more bluntly. Worse of all, he claimed, the New York Times and Fake News Media, which are about to go out of business, won’t say anything about this genocide.
South Africa “refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our US Embassy, who was present at the G20 Closing Ceremony.” Therefore, in my opinion, South Africa will not be invited to the 2026 G20, which will take place in Miami, Florida, the following year.
“We will stop all payments and subsidies to them immediately because South Africa has shown the world that it is not a country that deserves membership anywhere.” I appreciate you paying attention to this issue. the president enlarging.
After China, the US is South Africa’s second-largest single-country trading partner. According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, in total goods and services trade between the two nations reached $ 26.2% in 2024.
What has South Africa done to make a decision?
Trump’s choice was described as “regrettable” in a statement released by Ramaphosa’s office on Thursday.
“South Africa belongs to the G20 in its own right and name. All other G20 members are at their own risk.
South Africa is a sovereign, democratic, and constitutionally democratic nation that does not object to insults from other nations for its contribution to global platforms. South Africa will never disparage another nation or its standing within the global community.
President Trump continues to use punitive measures against South Africa based on false information and distortions about our country, regretting the statement’s conclusion.
The G20 is what?
Following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the group was established by 19 nations and the EU as a forum to discuss global economic issues.
Its other members include the African Union, which formally merged with Argentina at the 2023 summit in India, Brazil, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, and the United Kingdom, as well as the African Union, which formally incorporated as a 21st member.
There are also frequently invited guests from other nations, with 42 of them this year. Karol Nawrocki, president of Poland, claimed Trump had already invited him to the meeting in September.
No member state has ever been denied access to the summit up until now.
However, former US President Joe Biden claimed that Russia should be expelled from the G20 because of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but that claim was never fulfilled.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, was escorted to an event instead, prompting Sergey Lavrov, his foreign minister, to show up. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has an arrest warrant for the war in Ukraine.
Maxim Oreshkin, the deputy head of the presidential administration, was present at this year’s meeting in Johannesburg.  ,
Following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia was expelled from the Group of Seven (G7), before becoming known as the G8.
Trump may impose a G20 member’s ban on the annual summit.
Officially speaking, not. There is no formal mechanism for a G20 member state to unilaterally outlaw another because it is a group of informal states and bodies.
Trump may still grant South African representatives US visas, which would entail a ban on them from the nation and, consequently, the summit.
Why does Trump assert that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa?
Trump has frequently made allegations that there are white farmers in South Africa who are being killed in what he refers to as “genocide” since taking office in January.
Trump has continued to defend his claims despite being refuted by both South African officials and Afrikaner organizations.
Since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, unfounded rumors of a rumored “white genocide” have been spreading among minority, white communities. They have been popular in far-right circles in the US for ten years and have attracted the vocal backing of Elon Musk, a Trump ally and tech billionaire from South Africa.
Trump bases his assertions on the passage of a new law in South Africa that addresses land ownership disparities. More than 30 years after the end of apartheid, the white minority in the country still owns a third of the land, but South Africa claims the new law doesn’t discriminate against white landowners.
Experts believe that the Trump administration’s decision to cut foreign aid to South Africa in February could pose a serious threat to the country’s HIV response.
In response to the nation’s Expropriation Act, which allows for the seized and redistributed of land, he also signed the Executive Order “Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa.”
Trump blasted the alleged government actions that “promoted disproportionate violence against racial dissentioning landowners” and “equal opportunity in employment, education, and business” in the order.
In addition, Trump made an offer to resettle Afrikaners in the US, and in May, 59 white South Africans emigrated as part of a refugee program.
The ICJ’s decision to prosecute South Africa for its genocide of Gaza was also condemned in the order.
Ramaphosa disputed claims of a “white genocide” and said South Africa typically has high rates of violent crime, which affects all ethnic groups during a , heated exchange with Trump at the White House in May.
Source: Aljazeera
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