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Trump Decides to Boycott G20 Summit 11/13 06:01
U.S. President Donald Trump's decision that the United States government
boycott the Group of 20 summit next weekend in South Africa is "their loss,"
South Africa's leader said Wednesday.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's decision that
the United States government boycott the Group of 20 summit next weekend in
South Africa is "their loss," South Africa's leader said Wednesday.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa added that "the United States needs
to think again whether boycott politics actually works, because in my
experience it doesn't work."
Trump announced last week on social media that no U.S. government official
would attend the Nov. 22-23 meeting of leaders from 19 of the world's richest
and leading developing economies in Johannesburg, citing his widely rejected
claims that members of a white minority group in South Africa are being
violently persecuted and having their land taken from them because of their
race.
The U.S. president has for months targeted South Africa's Black-led
government for criticism over that and a range of other issues, including its
decision to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in
an ongoing and highly contentious case at the United Nations' top court.
"It is unfortunate that the United States decided not to attend the G20,"
Ramaphosa told reporters outside the South African Parliament. "The United
States by not being at the G20, one must never think that we are not going to
go on with the G20. The G20 will go on, all other heads of state will be here.
In the end we will take fundamental decisions and their absence is their loss."
Ramaphosa added that the U.S. is "giving up the very important role that
they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world."
Trump previously confronted Ramaphosa with his baseless claims that the
Afrikaner white minority in South Africa were being killed in widespread
attacks when the leaders met at the White House in May. At that meeting,
Ramaphosa lobbied for Trump to attend this month's G20 summit, the first to be
held in Africa.
The G20 was formed in 1999 to bring rich and developing countries together
to address issues affecting the global economy and international development.
The U.S., China, Russia, India, Japan, France, Germany, the U.K. and the
European Union are all members. The U.S. is due to take over the rotating
presidency of the G20 from South Africa at the end of the year.
Trump said on Truth Social last week that it was "a total disgrace that the
G20 will be held in South Africa" and claimed Afrikaners "are being killed and
slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated."
Trump had already said he would not attend the summit, but Vice President JD
Vance was expected to represent the U.S.
Trump's claims about anti-white violence and persecution in South Africa
have reflected those made previously by conservative media commentators in the
U.S. as far back as 2018.
Trump and others, including South African-born Elon Musk, have also accused
South Africa's government of being racist against whites because of its
affirmative action laws that aim to advance opportunities for the Black
majority who were oppressed under the former apartheid system of racial
segregation.
Ramaphosa's government has said the comments are the result of
misinformation and a lack of understanding of South Africa.
Relations between the U.S. and its biggest trading partner in Africa are at
their lowest since the end of apartheid in 1994, and Washington expelled the
South African ambassador to the U.S. in March over comments he made regarding
Trump.
The Trump administration has criticized South Africa's hosting of the G20
from the outset, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipping a G20
foreign ministers meeting in South Africa in February while calling the host's
policies "anti-Americanism" and deriding its focus on issues like climate
change and global inequality.
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