{"id":318320,"date":"2025-11-28T08:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318320\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T08:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T08:56:10","slug":"can-trump-ban-south-africa-from-2026-g20-summit-as-he-says-he-will-donald-trump-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318320\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Trump ban South Africa from 2026 G20 summit, as he says he will? | Donald Trump News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States President Donald Trump has announced he will block<\/a> South Africa from attending next year\u2019s G20 summit, as relations between the two nations continue to sour.<\/p>\n

The Group of 20 comprises 19 leading economies plus the European Union \u2013 and, now, the African Union. Countries within the group meet throughout the year, but an annual summit is also held, hosted by the country holding the presidency of the group.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Trump chose to boycott this year\u2019s G20 summit<\/a>, which was hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg last week. He has accused the country of conducting what he calls a \u201cwhite genocide\u201d against white farmers and communities.<\/p>\n

The US is next in line to take the group\u2019s presidency and will host the G20 summit next year.<\/p>\n

In a post earlier this month on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump said South Africa\u2019s role as host of this year\u2019s summit, the first to be held in an African nation, was a \u201ctotal disgrace\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfrikaners are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,\u201d Trump wrote of the white community of people who descended from Dutch settlers and French and German immigrants, reiterating a claim that South Africa has condemned and for which there is no evidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo US Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue. I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, in another Truth Social post, Trump announced that South Africa would not be invited to the next G20 summit.<\/p>\n

What has Trump said and why?<\/p>\n

With no senior US officials attending the summit, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa ended the two-day meeting last weekend without passing on the gavel, as per tradition, to the next country taking the presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis gavel of this G20 summit<\/a> formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year,\u201d Ramaphosa said in his closing remarks on Sunday.<\/p>\n

While Trump sent an official from the US embassy in South Africa at the last minute, he claimed Ramaphosa refused to hand the gavel to that person.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Trump also repeated that the US had not attended the summit because, he said, the South African government had refused to \u201cacknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them. Perhaps, worst of all, the soon to be out of business New York Times and the Fake News Media won\u2019t issue a word against this genocide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our US Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Therefore, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!\u201d the president added.<\/p>\n

The US is South Africa\u2019s second-largest single-country trading partner after China.\u00a0In 2024, total goods and services trade between the two countries reached an estimated $26.2bn, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.<\/p>\n

How has South Africa responded?<\/p>\n

In a statement issued by Ramaphosa\u2019s office on Thursday, Trump\u2019s decision was noted as \u201cregrettable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa is a member of the G20 in its own name and right. Its G20 membership is at the behest of all other members.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouth Africa is a sovereign constitutional democratic country and does not appreciate insults from another country about its worth in participating in global platforms. South Africa will never insult another country or its standing in the community of nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is regrettable that despite the efforts and numerous attempts by President Ramaphosa and his administration to reset the diplomatic relationship with the US, President Trump continues to apply punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions about our country,\u201d the statement ended.<\/p>\n

Professor Carlos Lopes, from the Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance at the University of Cape Town and associate fellow in the Africa programme at Chatham House, said Trump\u2019s decision was no \u201csurprise\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this announcement really shows is a familiar pattern: the bully in the classroom who refuses to follow the rules, but still wants to dominate the discussion,\u201d Lopes told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is less about South Africa per se and more about a worldview that treats international institutions as instruments of pressure rather than arenas for collective problem-solving,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"FILEWorld leaders assemble for the \u2018family photo\u2019 at the G20 Summit, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on November 22, 2025 [Leon Neal\/Pool via Reuters]What is the G20?<\/p>\n

In 1999, the group was formed by 19 countries and the European Union as a forum to discuss global economic issues following the 1997 Asian financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Its other members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, the United Kingdom, as well as the African Union, which joined as the 21st member at the 2023 summit in India.<\/p>\n

Other countries are also often invited to the summit; in total, 42 attended this year. Poland\u2019s President Karol Nawrocki said in September that Trump had already invited him to next year\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

Until now, no member state has ever been barred from the summit.<\/p>\n

However, in 2022, then-US President Joe Biden said Russia should be banned from the G20 due to its invasion of Ukraine, but that did not happen. <\/p>\n

On that occasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is subject to an arrest warrant by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the war in Ukraine, dispatched his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to attend instead. <\/p>\n

At this year\u2019s meeting in Johannesburg, the deputy head of the presidential administration, Maxim Oreshkin, attended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Separately, Russia was expelled from the Group of Seven (G7), then called the G8, in 2014, following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Can Trump ban a G20 member from the annual summit?<\/p>\n

Not officially. One G20 member state cannot unilaterally ban another from the summit since it is an informal grouping of states and bodies, and there is no formal mechanism to do so.<\/p>\n

Still, Trump could potentially deny US visas to representatives of South Africa, thereby banning them from the country and, by extension, the summit.<\/p>\n

Lopes said: \u201cA unilateral \u2018disinvitation\u2019 is more a political threat than an institutional reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why does Trump claim South Africa is engaged in a \u2018white genocide\u2019?<\/p>\n

Since his return to office in January, Trump has frequently alleged that white farmers in South Africa are being killed in what he calls a \u201cgenocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

This allegation has been refuted by both South African officials and Afrikaner groups, but Trump has remained resolute in his claims.<\/p>\n

Unfounded rumours of a so-called \u201cwhite genocide\u201d<\/a> have circulated among minority white South African communities since the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994. For the past decade, they have spread to far-right forums in the US and garnered vocal support from Trump ally and South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

Trump bases his allegations on South Africa\u2019s passing of a new law<\/a> seeking to address disparities in land ownership. Three-quarters of land is still owned by the country\u2019s white minority, more than 30 years after the end of apartheid, but South Africa says it is not targeting white landowners with the new law.<\/p>\n

In February, the Trump administration cut foreign aid to South Africa, a move which could be a serious threat to the nation\u2019s HIV response, according to experts.<\/p>\n

He also signed the \u201cAddressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa\u201d Executive Order in response to the country\u2019s Expropriation Act, which allows for land to be seized and redistributed.<\/p>\n

In the order, Trump condemned the alleged government policies that dismantled \u201cequal opportunity in employment, education, and business\u201d and caused \u201cdisproportionate violence against racially disfavoured landowners\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump also offered to resettle Afrikaners<\/a> in the US, and in May, 59 white South Africans arrived in the US<\/a>\u00a0as part of a refugee programme.<\/p>\n

The order also condemned South Africa\u2019s decision to launch a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

During a\u00a0heated exchange<\/a> with Trump at the White House in May, Ramaphosa denied claims of a \u201cwhite genocide\u201d and said South Africa generally experiences high rates of violent crime, which affects all ethnicities.<\/p>\n

In October, Trump announced an annual refugee cap of 7,500 for the 2026 fiscal year, with priority to be given to white South Africans.<\/p>\n

What will happen now?<\/p>\n

Lopes said the G20 \u201cdisinvitation\u201d will certainly \u201cdeepen the rift\u201d between the two countries.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s presidential spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, told the BBC that G20 members \u201cshould by now accept there won\u2019t be a reset of the relationship\u201d between South Africa and the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf visas are denied, well, then we will have to move on and look beyond the G20 in the US,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reinforces the perception in South Africa \u2013 and in much of the Global South \u2013 that Washington is prepared to instrumentalise institutions whenever a partner does not align with its preferences,\u201d Lopes told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIronically, by attempting to punish South Africa in a high-profile forum like the G20, the US risks accelerating exactly what it claims to fear: a greater geopolitical distancing and a narrative of US unreliability as a partner,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States President Donald Trump has announced he will block South Africa from attending next year\u2019s G20 summit,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1926,23,4868,12,3,111,5705,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-318320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-africa","tag-america","tag-business-and-economy","tag-donald-trump","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-africa","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}