US President Donald Trump on Friday said his country will not attend the Group of 20 summit in South Africa later this month, again citing his claims about treatment of white farmers.
“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network. “No US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue,” Trump said in his post.
“I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!” he added.
The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing minority white Afrikaner farmers to be persecuted and attacked.
As it restricted the number of refugees admitted annually to the US to 7,500, the administration indicated that most will be white South Africans who it claimed faced discrimination and violence at home, according to The Associated Press.
But the government of South Africa has said it is surprised by the accusations of discrimination, because white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living than its Black residents, more than three decades after the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule.
The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said he’s told Trump that information about the alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”
Nonetheless, the administration has kept up its criticisms of the South African government. Earlier this week during an economic speech in Miami, Trump said South Africa should be thrown out of the Group of 20.
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda focused on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts.
