President Donald Trump moved to block South Africa from attending next year’s G20 summit in Miami, accusing the country’s leaders of allowing violent human rights abuses against white citizens.
The president said South Africa refused to acknowledge the attacks on Afrikaners and other descendants of European settlers, claiming the situation has reached a point of “slaughter.” He posted that the United States skipped the G20 in Johannesburg last week for that reason.
Trump wrote that, under his direction, South Africa will not receive an invitation to the 2026 summit in Miami, calling the decision necessary due to the ongoing violence.
Reports of targeted killings in South Africa have outraged the president, who ordered a boycott of the Johannesburg meeting. He has repeatedly argued that white citizens in the country face a “genocide,” a charge President Cyril Ramaphosa denies.
Trump confronted Ramaphosa during a White House meeting in May, showing him videos and images of alleged farm attacks to underscore his point.
Independent analysts dispute the idea of a systematic campaign targeting white South Africans, noting that the country’s overall murder rate is driven mostly by crimes affecting the Black majority. Trump has dismissed those findings as political spin.
The president pointed to clips of Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema shouting “Shoot the Boer, shoot the farmer” at rallies, saying such rhetoric creates a climate where violence is tolerated.
Malema and Ramaphosa often publicly clash, but Trump said the effect on the ground is the same, as the Daily Mail reported.
Trump argued that the attacks amount to the killing of white people while their farms are taken from them. He repeated that South Africa will not be invited to the conference in Miami, saying the move is final.
The decision expands to financial aid as well. Trump declared that all U.S. assistance to South Africa will end immediately. He said the country has proven it is unworthy of membership “anywhere” and that taxpayers should not subsidize it.
U.S. data shows the country received more than $500 million in obligations for fiscal year 2024 and just over $100 million for fiscal year 2025. Trump already cut funding earlier in the year during his administration’s push to overhaul USAID.
The president also blamed the New York Times and what he calls the “Fake News Media” for ignoring the issue. He said the media’s silence on the violence proves why “all the liars and pretenders” of the left are collapsing.
Tensions escalated during last week’s G20 ceremony, where the host nation traditionally hands off the gavel to the next chair. With the United States absent, there was no formal transfer.
Trump later claimed a senior U.S. Embassy representative attended the closing event and that Ramaphosa refused to pass the gavel to America’s delegation. He accused South Africa of acting out of spite.
The president’s statement contradicted his earlier post in which he announced no U.S. officials would attend the Johannesburg summit while the human rights concerns remained unresolved.
