TOI Correspondent from Washington: Bluntly accusing the South African government of genocide of white people, US President Donald Trump said he would bar the country from attending the G-20 summit in Miami late next year, throwing the world's main forum for international economic cooperation, of which India is a part, into turmoil.
In an angry social media post, the US President, who boycotted the just concluded G-20 meet in Johannesburg, said he did not attend because 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,” he alleged. The narrative, mostly from a small minority of white nationalists in South Africa and US., has been widely debunked by independent observers amid acknowledgment that the country faces a law-and-order situation.
The US President further maintained that South Africa “has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere,” and said he will “stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately.”
U.S aid to Pretoria, mostly in the health sector, peaked at $ 564 million in 2024 before tailing off to a planned $ 103 million in 2025 amid deteriorating ties underscored by an Oval Office ambush of South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa where Trump showed him a multimedia presentation of "white genocide.” Ramaphosa maintained that the farm attacks were part of broader crime affecting all races and the allegations Trump referenced was from a "small minority party" not reflective of government policy.
Ramaphosa’s narrative was backed by golfing greats Ernie Els and Retief Goosen (brought in to appeal to Trump's love of golf) and billionaire Johann Rupert (South Africa’s richest man) even as Trump surrogate Elon Musk, who has promoted the white genocide allegations, glowered over them. “I am sorry I don’t have a plane to give you,” Ramaphosa joked at one point during the meeting, referring to a story at that time about Trump receiving a jet from Qatar. “I wish you did,” the U.S President kidded back.
But beyond the banter ties continued to sour, with Trump taking exception to what he claimed was South Africa’s refusal to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from the U.S. Embassy, who attended the closing ceremony in Johannesburg. Ramaphosa rejected the charges saying the “instruments of the G20 Presidency were duly handed over to a US Embassy official,” amid doubts over whether the Miami event will take place at all given the growing fissures in global politics and the adversarial position the U.S has taken on several fronts.
In a blistering rebuttal to Trump’s effort to evict South Africa from the G-20, Ramaphosa said the country is a member of the group “on its own name and right” and called on other member nations to reaffirm its continued operation in the spirit of multilateralism, based on consensus, with all members participating on an equal footing in all of its structure. “South Africa… does not appreciate insults from another country about its membership and worth in participating in global platforms,” he lashed back.
Legal and institutional norms surrounding the G20 cast serious doubt on the possibility and legitimacy of a unilateral ban on South Africa by Trump. The G20 is an informal, consensus-based forum without a binding charter or formal exclusion mechanism. No single member state — including the U.S — has the right to expel another, a fact that has been widely acknowledged in prior controversies, such as attempts to exclude Russia, where other members, including China, defended Russia’s status. The U.S is currently feuding with several other G-20 members including Brazil, Canada, and Mexico, with on-off spats with Russia, China, and India.
Rajghatta is author of Kamala Harris: Phenomenal Woman