PRETORIA, Dec 1 — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa yesterday dismissed United States President Donald Trump’s threat to exclude Pretoria from next year’s Group of 20 (G20) summit, and reaffirmed South Africa’s status as a founding member of the group.
Washington boycotted the G20 Leaders’ Summit held under South Africa’s presidency in Johannesburg on November 22 and 23, with Trump repeating allegations, widely discredited, that the host country’s Black-majority government persecutes its white minority.
Trump said on November 26 that South Africa would not be invited to the summit to be held in Florida next year because it had refused to hand over the G20 presidency to a senior representative of its embassy who was at the closing ceremony. Pretoria said it handed over the rotating presidency to a US embassy official.
“South Africa is and will remain a full, active and constructive member of the G20,” Ramaphosa said in a state of the nation address yesterday.
He also described as “blatant misinformation” Trump’s repeated claims that South Africa is committing “genocide against Afrikaners” — descendants of Dutch settlers — and confiscating land from white citizens.
He noted that despite the diplomatic rift, US businesses and civil society groups engaged actively in G20-related events in Johannesburg in November.
“We value those constructive ties and will continue to work within the G20 framework,” Ramaphosa said, signalling Pretoria’s intention to maintain dialogue.
