The White House reiterated on Thursday that the United States will not participate in official G20 discussions in South Africa, dismissing recent reports that it had reversed course as "fake news." A U.S. chargé d'affaires will attend a ceremonial handover event, but will not join substantive summit negotiations.
President Donald Trump announced in early November that U.S. officials would boycott the summit in response to what his administration described as human-rights abuses in South Africa. In a Truth Social post on Nov. 7, Mr. Trump wrote that "Afrikaners ... are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated. No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue."
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said at a G20 event in Johannesburg that Pretoria had received notice from the United States and that discussions were ongoing about potential U.S. participation "in one shape, form or other." Ramaphosa called a potential change of approach "a positive sign" and warned against "boycott politics," while also saying that if the U.S. does not engage in substantive talks it would be effectively "outside the tent."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that there had been no shift in U.S. plans to avoid official G20 negotiations. "This is fake news," a White House official said, noting that the U.S. representative in Pretoria would attend only the ceremonial handover to acknowledge that the United States will host a future G20, but would not take part in formal discussions.
"The chargé d'affaires in Pretoria will attend the handover ceremony as a formality, but the United States is not joining G20 discussions," the official said.
Tensions between Washington and Pretoria have risen in recent months. In May, Mr. Trump confronted President Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over claims that White Afrikaner farmers in South Africa were being killed and that their land was being seized; the exchange included footage shown to the South African delegation. In the same period, the U.S. State Department said it was accepting South African applicants it determined were fleeing "government-sponsored racial discrimination."
The South African government has strongly rejected characterizations of a "white genocide," saying such claims are not supported by the facts and describing portrayals of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group as ahistorical.
Several other world leaders — including China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Argentina’s Javier Milei — are reported to be skipping the summit in person while sending delegations in their place. The U.S. decision to remain absent from official talks while maintaining a limited ceremonial presence underscores ongoing diplomatic friction between Washington and Pretoria as both sides continue to spar publicly over race, property and political rhetoric.
