Trump Drops South Africa from G20 Miami
US President Donald Trump announced that South Africa will not be invited to the 2026 G20 Summit in Miami. He also said he would “stop all payments and subsidies” to the country. This move marks a new chapter in the deterioration of relations between Washington and Pretoria, which have been strained in recent months.
In a social media post, Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that South Africa committed genocide against white Afrikaans and confiscated land without compensation. He also criticized South Africa’s handling of the latest G20 meeting. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government called Trump’s comments “unfortunate” and stressed that South Africa refuses to be insulted about its eligibility in the global forum.
The South African government believes Trump’s decision is inconsistent with Ramaphosa’s efforts to improve relations with the US. Ramaphosa’s previous visit to Washington, intended to ease tensions, escalated after Trump played a video that reinforced the genocide narrative. The US also boycotted last weekend's G20 meeting in South Africa and sent a diplomatic note warning Pretoria against adopting the leaders' declaration, but the host proceeded anyway.
Technically, it's unclear how the US will enforce this ban, but one possibility is to deny visas to South African officials wishing to attend in Miami. South Africa itself has insisted it will remain a full member of the G20 and has warned that any change in membership requires consensus from all members.
Trump has also threatened to cut off various forms of payments to South Africa, even though some US aid was already frozen by executive order last March. Amid this pressure, Pretoria has pushed for the G20 to remain run in the spirit of multilateralism, with all members having equal standing in every structure and decision-making process. (Asd)
Source: Newsmaker.id
