Trump says he won

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will ban South Africa from participating in next year’s Group of 20 summit at his Miami-area club and will suspend all payments and subsidies to the country over the treatment of a U.S. government representative at this year’s global meeting.

Trump decided to have a US government delegation not attend last weekend’s summit hosted in South Africa, saying he did so because his white Afrikaners were being violently persecuted. It is a claim that South Africa, which was mired for decades in racial apartheid, has rejected as unfounded.

The Republican president, in a social media post, said South Africa had refused to hand over its responsibilities as host of the G20 to a senior representative of the US embassy when the summit ended.

“Therefore, under my instructions, South Africa will NOT receive an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be held in the great city of Miami, Florida, next year,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“South Africa has shown the world that it is not a country worthy of membership anywhere,” he said, “and we are stopping all payments and subsidies to them, with immediate effect.”

South Africa said it considered the US decision to name a local embassy official to the G20 handover an insult. Instead, the ceremony took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building after the summit “as the United States was not present at the summit,” a statement from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office said.

AP Photo/Jerome Delay

The statement said Ramaphosa “took note of President Donald Trump’s regrettable statement regarding South Africa’s participation in the 2026 G20 meetings.”

He also rejected Trump’s widely rejected claims that Afrikaner farmers are being killed and their land taken away, saying Trump “continues to pursue punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions about our country.”

In some ways, Trump views next year’s G20 summit as personal, given that he announced it will be at his golf club in Doral, Florida.

This year’s summit in Johannesburg, the first held in Africa, was boycotted by the United States, a founding member of the G20 and the world’s largest economy. The meeting’s statement, which pays more attention to issues affecting developing countries, was not signed by Washington, and the Trump administration expressed opposition to South Africa’s agenda, especially the parts that focus on climate change.

The United States has now assumed the rotating presidency of the G20, leaving the long-term impact of South Africa’s declaration unclear.

Trump has claimed that white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa are being killed and their land confiscated. The South African government and others, including some Afrikaners, say Trump’s claims are the result of misinformation.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

South Africa has been a target for Trump since he returned to office earlier this year, with his administration calling the country anti-American because of its diplomatic relations with China, Russia and Iran.

Last month, the Trump administration announced it would restrict the number of refugees admitted annually to the United States to 7,500, with most spots reserved for white South Africans. Trump had suspended the refugee program on his first day in office in January. Since then, only a small number have entered the country, mostly white South Africans. In May, the administration welcomed a group of 59 white South Africans as refugees.

Afrikaners are South Africans who descend primarily from Dutch settlers, but also French and German settlers, who first arrived in the country in the 17th century.

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948 to 1994, leading to decades of hostility between them and South Africa’s black majority. But Afrikaners are not a homogeneous group and some fought against apartheid.

There are an estimated 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa’s population of 62 million.

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AP writer Gerald Imray in Johannesburg contributed to this report.