U.S. President Donald Trump has offered a detailed explanation for Washington’s decision to boycott the G20 Summit hosted in South Africa, accusing the South African government of severe human-rights abuses and failure to cooperate with U.S. diplomatic protocols.
In a statement released on Friday, Trump said the U.S. did not attend the summit because the South African government “refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific human-right abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers.”
Trump, who has frequently criticised South Africa over its land reform policies, went on to make sweeping allegations about violence in the country, claiming that white farmers were being targeted and dispossessed.
“To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people, and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them,” he said. He also accused U.S. media outlets of ignoring what he described as a “genocide.”
The president further criticised South Africa’s handling of the summit’s closing protocol, alleging that the host nation refused to formally hand over the G20 presidency to a senior U.S. embassy representative who attended the ceremony.
“At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy,” Trump said. “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.”
Escalating his criticism, Trump also announced that the U.S. would halt all financial assistance to South Africa, saying the country had shown it was “not worthy of membership anywhere.”
The South African government has not yet issued an official response to Trump’s remarks.
