South Africa Blasts Trump's Boycott of G-20 Over Alleged Persecution of White Afrikaners

South Africa Blasts Trump’s Boycott of G20 Over Alleged Persecution of White Afrikaners South Africa South Africa’s government over the weekend called “regrettable” US President Donald Trump’s decision to boycott next month’s Group of 20 (G20) summit in Johannesburg, after he accused the country of persecuting White farmers and announced that no US officials would attend, CBS News reported. On Friday, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” claiming that “Afrikaners are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” He wrote that “no US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue” and reiterated his plan to host next year’s G20 in Miami. In response, South Africa’s foreign ministry said the characterization of Afrikaners as an exclusively White and persecuted group was “ahistorical” and “not substantiated by fact,” adding that the government “looks forward to hosting a successful summit.” The ministry reaffirmed that the global gathering later this month would proceed under the theme of “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.” The boycott deepens tensions between Washington and Pretoria, which have escalated since January over South Africa’s new Expropriation Act – a land reform law allowing the state to appropriate land in limited circumstances, Al Jazeera noted. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the policy amounts to land “confiscation” and that White South Africans face “racial persecution,” accusations that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has dismissed as “completely false.” Ramaphosa has countered that the reforms address historic inequalities in land ownership, with roughly three-quarters of privately held land still in White hands more than three decades after apartheid ended. The Trump administration has continued to assert that Afrikaners are being targeted, announcing in October that most of the 7,500 refugees the US will admit annually will come from South Africa’s White minority. In May, Washington granted asylum to 59 White South Africans, describing them as victims of racial discrimination. However, South African analysts and researchers have accused Trump of inflaming racial divisions for political purposes. Historian Saul Dubow of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom told Al Jazeera that Trump’s “fantasy claims of White genocide” lacked merit and suggested his anger may also stem from South Africa’s filing of a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.