South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa says “boycott politics doesn’t work” as he hit back at US President Donald Trump’s decision to skip the G20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg later this month.
Trump has said that no US official would attend the gathering over widely discredited claims that white people are being persecuted in South Africa.
Speaking outside parliament, Ramaphosa said the US’s “absence is their loss” and that the boycott would not prevent the meeting from going ahead, according to the AFP news agency.
He added that the US was “giving up the very important role that they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world”.
The G20 summit is taking place between 22-23 November but in a post on social media, Trump said it was a “total disgrace” that South Africa was hosting it.
He had earlier said South Africa should not be in the G20 at all, and that he would send Vice-President JD Vance, instead of attending himself.
Then over the weekend, he doubled down on his claims that “Afrikaners [people who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants] are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated”.
“No US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue,” he added.
Trump has previously said that while he is trying to restrict the number of refugees the US accepts, Afrikaners would be welcome.
Ramaphosa said “boycotting never achieves anything of great impact, because decisions will be taken that will move the various issues ahead”, AFP reports.
South Africa is the current chair of the G20 grouping of the world’s largest economies.
The forthcoming summit will mark the first time it takes place on African soil.
Every year, a different member state holds the G20 presidency and sets the agenda for the leaders’ summit, where they discuss the major economic issues of the day – with the US due to take over from South Africa.
Trump is not the only leader set to skip the G20. Hi close ally, Argentinian President Javier Milei, has also indicated he will not attend but will instead send his Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, AFP reports.
South Africa’s government has said that claims of a white genocide are “widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence”.
It also says that no white farmers have seen their land confiscated without compensation.
By BBC News
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