South Africa will not receive an invitation to the 2026 summit of the Group of Twenty (G20) in the United States, just as the country’s leadeship refused to hand over the presidency of the group at the end of the 20th summit in Johannesburg on 22–23 November.
US President Donald Trump announced the decision on 26 November on the social network Truth Social.
It will be recalled that at the conclusion of the summit, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony. Trump, therefore, said South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted by the U.S. in Miami, Florida, next year.
South Africa has demonstrated to the world that they are not a country worthy of membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” Tramp wrote.
He stressed that the United States did not attend the G20 summit in South Africa because, in his words, “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”.
“To put it more bluntly, they are killing white people and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them,” the US president claims.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his response, described Trump’s decision not to invite South Africa to the 2026 G20 summit as a “punitive measure” that causes regret.
“It is regrettable that <…> President Trump continues to apply punitive measures against South Africa, based on disinformation and distortions about our country,” the South African president’s office said.
According to Ramaphosa, due to the absence of the United States at the G20 summit, the documents confirming the handover of the presidency of the grouping “were duly handed over to a member of staff of the US Embassy at the main office of South Africa’s foreign ministry”.
Before the G20 summit in Johannesburg (South Africa) on 22–23 November, South African presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said that Ramaphosa would not hand over the G20 presidency to US chargé d’affaires ad interim Mark Dillard. According to the South African authorities, the ceremony for handing over the presidency requires that the successor country be represented at least at the ministerial level. Deputy White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in response that Ramaphosa was obstructing “a smooth transfer of the presidency” of the G20 from South Africa to the United States.
On 8 November, US President Donald Trump said that the United States would not participate in the G20 summit due to “mass executions” of the descendants of white settlers, violations of their rights and the “illegal confiscation” of their property. South Africa’s foreign ministry rejected Trump’s accusations.
Relations between South Africa and the United States deteriorated in January 2025, when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa approved a law allowing the government, in certain circumstances, to confiscate property without compensation if it serves the public interest. After that, the US leader accused the South African government of “horrible treatment” of “certain classes of people” in the country.
As a result of the conflict, Trump signed an order suspending US assistance to South Africa, under which all assistance programmes are to be reviewed, and the work of US missions in the country is also suspended.
At the end of May, the South African president visited the United States and met with Donald Trump, who demanded explanations from the South African leader regarding accusations of “genocide” of white South Africans. (GSF)
