President Donald Trump said he will likely skip the upcoming G20 summit because it is being held in South Africa.
During an impromptu conversation with the media on Air Force One on Tuesday as Trump was flying home from a visit to Scotland, the president was asked if he would attend the November meeting.
“I don’t think so, no,” Trump said in a video posted to X.
“I think maybe I’ll send somebody else, because I’ve had a lot of problems with South Africa and they have some very bad policies — very, very bad policies, like policies where people are being killed. A lot of people are being killed,” he said.
“So I think I probably won’t. I’d like to, but I don’t think I will,” he said.
As noted by Fox News, in May, Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had a tense Oval Office meeting during which Trump aired the grievances of white farmers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipped a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in South Africa this year, citing the South African government’s land seizure policy.
South Africa has also incurred the wrath of the United States by advancing allegations of genocide against Israel before the World Court.
Trump crystallized his administration’s issues with South Africa in a February executive order that ended American financial assistance to the country.
“In shocking disregard of its citizens’ rights, the Republic of South Africa (South Africa) recently enacted Expropriation Act 13 of 2024 (Act), to enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation,” the order said.
“This Act follows countless government policies designed to dismantle equal opportunity in employment, education, and business, and hateful rhetoric and government actions fueling disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners.
“In addition, 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,” the order continued.
“South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people very badly,” Trump said in a fact sheet posted by the White House.
“I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!” Trump said.
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