President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested he might not attend the G20 summit in South Africa due to the country’s “very bad policies.” 

“I think maybe I’ll send somebody else because I’ve had a lot of problems with South Africa. They have some very bad policies,” Trump said on Air Force One on his way back to the United States from a Scotland trip. “Very, very bad policies, like policies where people are being killed.”

Recommended Stories

• US frustrated by France and UK giving 'hope' to Hamas with Palestinian state recognition
• Trump appreciates ‘respect’ in Scotland as British leaders seek ‘soft power’
• Trump blasts ‘nasty’ London mayor in front of Starmer: ‘He’s done a terrible job’

South Africa will host the G20 Leaders’ Summit in November, making it the first to take place on African soil. 

The Trump administration has engaged in a guessing game about whether U.S. officials will boycott the summit, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio announcing in May that neither he nor the president would attend. Still, when later asked in May about his participation at the summit during an Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump declined to give a hard no, while Ramaphosa said he expected Trump to attend the conference. 

The Trump administration’s refusal to embrace the summit comes as it has expressed deepening concerns about South Africa’s direction as Ramaphosa forms closer ties with Russia and China. The White House has pointed to the country’s participation in the new BRICS intergovernmental organization, which it says is seeking to undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s currency, as well as its leadership role in the Global South, as evidence that it is spurning Western influence. 

In addition, the Trump administration has expressed anger over South Africa’s “aggressive positions” toward Israel. South Africa has received heavy criticism from both the Trump and Biden administrations for bringing genocide claims against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

However, it is South Africa’s treatment of its Afrikaner minority that has gained the most publicized criticism from the Trump White House. 

Afrikaners, also known as Boers, are white South Africans who have lived in the country since the 1600s as the descendants of Dutch, German, and French settlers. The Trump administration has warned that brutal attacks against the minority group, particularly Afrikaner farmers, are being carried out by black South Africans. In addition, Trump has pointed to a new law allowing the government to take land from citizens without compensation, which he views as a way to take over ethnic Afrikaners’ farms. 

Ramaphosa’s government has characterized the accusations as lies, although State Department records going back decades have documented concerns about the widespread killings of Afrikaner farmers. 

In May, Trump held a meeting with Ramaphosa in which he presented the South African leaderwith evidence of persecution against white South African farmers, including a row of white crosses representing Boers killed in attacks, a thick stack of reports on racial persecution of Afrikaners, and Afrikaner refugees fleeing the country, including one article depicting elderly Afrikaner man who was beaten and hacked with a machete before being left for dead.

Trump included in his presentation a video montage of South African politician Julius Malema singing a song calling for followers to “Kill the Boer.” 

The communist leader’s party, South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters, later defended its support for the “Kill the Boer” song. 

“Donald Trump in his illiterate rants has called for his arrest for daring to call for land expropriation without compensation,” a statement from the party reads. “As a result, the EFF is concerned by this call that something must be done to stop the EFF president from chanting a liberation heritage song.”

Trump’s public rebuke to South Africa in May followed an executive order he signed in February sanctioning the country over its treatment of the Afrikaner minority while directing the State Department to clear the way for refugees to settle in the U.S. In May, the first wave of Afrikaner refugees headed to the U.S. under the resettlement program. 

The executive order responded to Ramaphosa’s January approval of the Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, which allows the expropriation of land without compensation in some cases. The U.S. interpreted the law to mean it provided a way to take over Afrikaner farmers’ agricultural property without compensation. 

The executive order, which responded to reports that Afrikaners are being targeted in racially motivated attacks in rural communities, additionally condemned South Africa’s “aggressive positions” toward the U.S. and Israel.

“South Africa has taken aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies, including accusing Israel, not Hamas, of genocide in the International Court of Justice, and reinvigorating its relations with Iran to develop commercial, military, and nuclear arrangements,” Trump’s February executive order read.

Also in early February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans to boycott a G20 preparatory summit for foreign ministers in Johannesburg.

FLEEING PERSECUTION, SOUTH AFRICAN ARRIVALS SCRAMBLE REFUGEE POLITICS

“South Africa is doing very bad things,” he said. “Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change.”

“My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism,” Rubio added.