President Donald Trump said Friday that no U.S. government officials will attend this year’s G20 summit in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.
Trump had already announced that he would not participate in the annual summit for heads of state from the world’s main emerging economies. Vice President JD Vance would attend the event in the president’s place. A person close to Vance, with access to his diary, and whose identity was withheld, said he would no longer travel to South Africa to participate in the summit.
“It is a total disgrace that the G20 is being held in South Africa,” Trump said on one of his social networks. In the post, Trump cited “abuses” against Afrikaners (a white ethnic group from South Africa, most of whom are descendants of the Dutch, French and Germans who immigrated to the Cape of Good Hope from the 17th century), including acts of violence and death, as well as confiscation of their lands and farms.
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The Trump administration has long accused the South African government of allowing white Afrikaner minority farmers to be harassed and attacked. In restricting the number of refugees admitted annually to the US to 7,500, the US government pointed out that the majority would be white South Africans, who faced discrimination and violence at home.
South Africa’s government, in contrast, said it was surprised by the accusations of discrimination, as white people in the country generally have a much higher standard of living compared to black residents, more than three decades after the end of apartheid under a white minority government.
The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told Trump that reports about alleged discrimination and persecution of Afrikaners were “completely false.”
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The Trump administration, however, maintained its criticism of the South African government. Earlier this week, during a speech on the country’s economy in Miami, Trump said that South Africa should be expelled from the Group of 20.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 meeting for foreign ministers because its agenda would focus on diversity, inclusion and climate change efforts./Source: Associated Press
*This content was translated with the help of Artificial Intelligence tools and reviewed by our editorial team. Learn more in our AI Policy.
