South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has described as regrettable the announcement by US President Donald Trump that South Africa would not be invited to take part in next year's G20 summit in Florida.
In a social media post, Trump said South Africa had refused to hand over the G20 presidency to a US embassy representative at last week's summit in Johannesburg.
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.
Members of the G20 – a gathering of the world's biggest economies - do not need an invite but can possibly be barred through visa restrictions.
Trump boycotted the Johannesburg summit because of a widely discredited claim that South Africa's white minority is the victim of large-scale killings and land grabs.
In a statement, Ramaphosa said the US had been expected to participate in the G20 meetings, but unfortunately, it elected not to attend the G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg out of its own volition. He however noted that some US businesses and civil society entities were present.
Ramaphosa emphasized that the instruments of the G20 Presidency were duly handed over to a US Embassy official at the South African Department of International Relations.
The low-key handover seems to have further angered Trump, who has criticized South Africa's domestic and foreign policies. In the past, he claimed that a white genocide was happening in South Africa.
Trump's social media post claimed that South Africa was not worthy of membership anywhere and announced a stop to all payments and subsidies, effective immediately.
The G20 summit, for the first time in Africa, concluded with a joint declaration committing to multilateral cooperation on pressing global issues, despite US objections.
