WASHINGTON/JOHANNESBURG: President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that South Africa will be barred from attending next year’s G20 summit in Miami, escalating tensions between the two nations following the U.S. boycott of last week’s G20 leaders’ meeting in Johannesburg.
Trump cited South Africa’s refusal to hand over the G20 presidency to a U.S. Embassy representative at the closing ceremony as the reason for the exclusion. “At my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office rejected the characterization as inaccurate, stating that the presidency instruments were properly transferred to a U.S. Embassy official at their Department of International Relations and Cooperation headquarters. The office labeled Trump’s action as “regrettable” and “punitive,” attributing it to misinformation about South Africa.
The escalation marks the latest chapter in Trump’s contentious relationship with South Africa’s government. In a separate announcement Wednesday, Trump declared his administration would “stop all payments and subsidies” to South Africa immediately. This follows an earlier executive order from February that already cut financial assistance over disputes regarding South Africa’s land policy and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Ramaphosa’s office expressed frustration over Trump’s persistent and widely debunked claims of white persecution and genocide in South Africa, despite multiple diplomatic attempts to reset U.S.-South Africa relations.
-David Nomiyama
