Trump Says South Africa Is Not Invited to G20 Summit in U.S. in 2026
President Trump said on Wednesday that South Africa would not be invited to next year’s Group of 20 summit in the United States, just days after South Africa finished hosting the annual gathering, in the latest of a series of attacks on Africa’s largest economy.
Mr. Trump did not attend the meeting, a gathering of the world’s largest economies, citing the false narrative that white South Africans are being indiscriminately killed and having their land seized. In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, the president repeated the claim.
He said he was excluding South Africa because its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, had refused to ceremonially hand over the summit to the acting U.S. ambassador; South African officials have said that the handover had to be done to another head of state, not a diplomat.
During an Oval Office meeting in May, Mr. Trump ambushed Mr. Ramaphosa with the same claims of white persecution. He played a slickly produced video that he said supported his claims, leaving the South African president stunned and sinking his country’s relationship with the United States to a low point.
Mr. Trump also said on Wednesday that the United States would “stop all payments and subsidies” to South Africa, though it was not clear to exactly what he was referring. Most U.S. aid to South Africa has already been suspended, through an executive order earlier this year and other cuts by the Trump administration to foreign aid. Almost all of the American funding to South Africa was in the form of funding to fight H.I.V. and AIDS.
“South Africa has demonstrated to the world they are not a country worthy of membership anywhere,” Mr. Trump wrote in his post.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.