South Africa Gets Ready to Host Amid Trump’s Boycott

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: South Africa gets ready to host a G-20 summit boycotted by the United States, Pretoria seeks answers after Palestinians arrive by plane in Johannesburg, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels sign a peace framework.

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This weekend’s upcoming Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, will be the first ever hosted on African soil. Yet the United States’ decision to boycott the historic event has torpedoed South Africa’s clean energy agenda.

Ahead of the summit, U.S. President Donald Trump has doubled down on his false claims of a “white genocide” in South Africa. “It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump wrote on Truth Social earlier this month.

Afrikaners, the descendants of European (mostly Dutch) settlers, are being “killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” Trump continued. “No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.”

Some white South Africans have denounced Trump’s assertions. “We reject the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa,” a group of more than 40 prominent Afrikaners wrote in an open letter last month. “We are not pawns in America’s culture wars.”

The Trump administration has also opposed South Africa’s theme for the summit—“solidarity, equality, and sustainability”—and its agenda of funding renewable energy transitions and expanding commitments to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The goals are not dissimilar from those stated during last year’s summit in Brazil.

One concern with the U.S. boycott is that it may prevent the G-20 from issuing a joint declaration. Still, South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters on Monday, “We are forging ahead to persuade the countries that are present that we must adopt the leaders’ declaration because the institution cannot be bogged down by someone who is absent.”

Meanwhile, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that in Trump’s absence, he will symbolically hand over the bloc’s rotating presidency to an “empty chair” at the end of the summit, as the United States is the next country slated to adopt the role.

Trump is not the only major leader to bow out of the gathering. Argentine President Javier Milei, a Trump ally, will not be attending, and nor will the leaders of China, Mexico, and Russia. (Chinese President Xi Jinping often does not travel to summits outside of China, while Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be attending due to an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him.) All four countries, however, will be sending delegates to Johannesburg.

Still, U.S. officials did take part in lower-level G-20 meetings ahead of the summit, agreeing last month to declarations on debt sustainability, air quality, and environmental crimes such as wildlife trafficking and minerals smuggling.

Despite concerns about what the G-20 will be able to achieve, Washington’s absence may end up allowing assertive middle powers, such as Brazil, Turkey, India, and South Africa, to push for the group to prioritize issues that reflect their interests.

“The G-20 will go on—all other heads of states will be here, and, in the end, we will take fundamental decisions,” Ramaphosa said. “And their absence is their loss.”

Thursday, Nov. 20: The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Nigeria’s redesignation as a “country of particular concern.”

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a nomination hearing to consider Leo Brent Bozell III as the U.S. ambassador to South Africa.

Monday, Nov. 24, to Tuesday, Nov. 25: The European Union-African Union summit is held in Luanda, Angola.

Tuesday, Nov. 25: The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to receive a briefing on the International Criminal Court’s activities in Libya.

Palestinian flight. South Africa is seeking answers from Israel after a mysterious charter plane carrying 153 Palestinians from Gaza arrived in Johannesburg on Nov. 13 without documentation.

The passengers, who said they paid more than $2,000 per person and boarded the plane without knowing its final destination, were not allowed to disembark for 12 hours; 130 of them were granted entry and given accommodation, while 23 flew to other destinations. Israeli officials said the Palestinians had received entry clearance, which Pretoria denies.

“It does seem like they were being flushed out” of Gaza, Ramaphosa said on Friday.

Bilateral tensions have been high since South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice in December 2023, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza—allegations that Israel has called “baseless.”

Touadéra’s third term? The Central African Republic’s top court has approved President Faustin-Archange Touadéra’s eligibility to run for a third term in elections next month, more than two years after a 2023 constitutional referendum abolished the country’s two-term limit and extended the presidential mandate from five to seven years.

Touadéra was first elected in 2016. Since roughly 2018, his presidency has largely been secured by the Russian paramilitary Wagner Group in exchange for mineral access. Wagner prevented rebel groups from seizing the capital of Bangui in 2021.

Stalled peace. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels signed a peace framework on Saturday in Doha, Qatar, with an aim of stopping fighting in eastern Congo. The agreement is similar to one signed by Congo and Rwanda in June and effectively serves as a prelude to truce negotiations rather than a definitive peace agreement.

Yet there is reason to doubt whether the agreement will have a real impact on the ground. So far, Rwandan troops have not withdrawn from Congo, while M23 forces remain in occupied areas and continue to launch offenses in the region.

“The Congolese army has recently hired new foreign mercenaries to support its troops, while the M23 has carried out some of its worst massacres” during the talks, the New Humanitarian reports.

China-Zambia ties. Beijing’s second in command, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, began a two-day trip to Zambia on Wednesday ahead of the G-20 summit. His tour focuses on the $1.4 billion modernization of the Tazara railway line connecting Tanzania and Zambia—a rival to the U.S.-backed Lobito corridor, a railway that will run through Angola, Congo, and Zambia.

China largely controls the mineral market in Zambia and Congo, and the Tazara upgrade is expected to quadruple freight capacity and increase critical minerals revenue for landlocked Zambia’s Copperbelt province.

Li’s visit comes amid tensions between the Zambian public and China over a toxic spill in February at Chinese state-owned copper mine Sino-Metals Leach. The spill poisoned the country’s largest river, which is a major drinking-water source for residents in the capital of Lusaka. Li’s trip marks the first visit to Zambia by a Chinese premier in almost three decades.

Nigeria’s Edo state has indefinitely postponed the grand opening of the $25 million Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) after protesters loyal to Benin’s king, Oba Ewuare II, disrupted a preview attended by foreign diplomats on Nov. 9, demanding that it be named the Benin Royal Museum.

SBM Intelligence, a Nigerian risk analysis firm, described the decision as “an act of severe economic self-sabotage.” The MOWAA aimed to create more than 30,000 jobs annually through international tourism to Benin City, which is the Edo state capital. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has since formed a committee to resolve the dispute.

The independent nonprofit Legacy Restoration Trust was set up in 2020 by the Nigerian government and Western investors to facilitate the return of Nigerian artifacts from Western museums. The MOWAA, its flagship project, was originally envisaged as a place to house the Benin Bronzes, a collection of brass, wooden, and ivory treasures looted from Benin in 1897 by British soldiers.

But the project has been mired in controversy since its inception. Ewuare II has argued that looted artifacts belong to the royal family and should therefore be under his control. He has denounced the trust, which led the MOWAA to drop “Edo” from its name in 2022.

In 2023, then-Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed guardianship of restituted Benin Bronzes to Ewuare II, who announced a separate, forthcoming museum.

The MOWAA issued a statement on Nov. 10 seeking to clarify its “role within Benin City’s cultural landscape.” “Since our inception in 2020, the Museum has consistently affirmed that it has no claims” to the Benin Bronzes, it said. “We set out to demonstrate that it’s possible to build world-class conservation facilities, research, and exhibition spaces right here in Nigeria.”

Peacemaking in Sudan. In Foreign Policy, Suha Musa argues that Trump should prioritize resolving Sudan’s civil war and removing the United Arab Emirates from peace talks.

“Washington has real leverage with the UAE, and if it avoids exercising that leverage decisively, the United States resigns itself to complicity,” she writes. “There is a genocide in Sudan. It is being carried out by the RSF [Rapid Support Forces] with the UAE’s help.”

On Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Council ordered an investigation into mass killings in El Fasher, a city in Sudan’s North Darfur region that was seized by the paramilitary RSF on Oct. 26.

Libya’s oil graft. State-sanctioned fuel smuggling cost the Libyan economy nearly $20 billion from 2022 to 2024, according to a new report by the Sentry.

In Foreign Policy, Justyna Gudzowska, the Sentry’s executive director, calls for Western powers to investigate and sanction Libyan officials enabling the illicit trade, especially as Libya has launched new oil exploration bids to attract international companies.

“If Washington wants U.S. companies to succeed in Libya in the long term, it must help rein in Libya’s kleptocrats,” she writes.