WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that South Africa should be removed from the G20 and announced that he will boycott the group’s upcoming summit in Johannesburg, accusing the country of human rights abuses and land confiscation.
“South Africa shouldn’t even be in the G’s anymore, because what’s happened there is bad,” Trump told the American Business Forum in Miami.
“I’m not going … I’m not going to represent our country there. It shouldn’t be there,” he added, referring to the G20 Johannesburg Summit planned for Nov. 22-23. Trump has repeatedly accused South Africa of confiscating land and treating “certain classes of people very badly,” calling it “a massive human rights violation.”
“How could we be expected to go to South Africa for the very important G20 meeting when land confiscation and genocide are the primary topics of conversation?” Trump said in April.
Trump issued Executive Order 14204 in February, directing federal agencies to facilitate the resettlement of white South African Afrikaners, described as “victims of unjust racial discrimination,” and to cut US aid to South Africa. The South African government has rejected Trump’s claims, saying they “rest on a premise that is factually inaccurate.”
