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President Donald Trump said that he would not invite South Africa to participate in next year’s G-20 summit in Miami and that he planned to “stop all payments and subsidies” to the country, as relations between Washington and Pretoria continue to deteriorate.
Trump, in a social media post on Wednesday, repeated claims without evidence that South Africa was committing genocide against White Afrikaners and seizing land without compensation and criticized the country’s handling of the recent global summit.
“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,” Trump said. “South 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.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said in a statement that Trump’s comments were “regrettable” and that his nation “does not appreciate insults from another country about its worth in participating in global platforms.”
“It 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,” the statement read.
It’s not clear how the US will enforce Trump’s ban on South Africa’s participation, but presumably the State Department will not issue visas to officials seeking to attend the conference.
“South Africa will continue to participate as a full, active and constructive member of the G-20,” according to the South African statement. “We call on members of the G-20 to reaffirm its continued operation in the spirit of multilateralism, based on consensus, with all members participating on an equal footing in all of its structures.”
Trump’s clash with South Africa reached a boiling point in May when he ambushed Ramaphosa during a visit to Washington, which was intended to mend ties with the US and persuade the American president to stop floating the conspiracy theory about a campaign against White South Africans. The president played a video montage amplifying the claims of genocide.
The US boycotted the G-20 meeting over the weekend in South Africa and sent a diplomatic note warning Pretoria against adopting a leaders’ declaration. South Africa went ahead and approved the document shortly after the meeting began.
The South Africans also rejected a US request for Marc Dillard, the chargé d’affaires in South Africa, to attend the leaders’ summit and receive the ceremonial G-20 handover, saying Ramaphosa would not engage with a lower-ranking official. Instead, the handover took place quietly between diplomats at South Africa’s foreign ministry in Pretoria on Tuesday.
South Africa had been bracing for Trump to block it from the Miami summit, and officials there remain concerned that the US could seek to boot the country entirely from the group. Any change in membership would require consensus among G-20 nations, as was the case before the 2023 summit in India, when the African Union was admitted as a full member.
It’s not clear what Trump’s threat to cut off payments to South Africa will entail. Trump already suspended aid to the country in an executive order in March.