South Africa hit back at President Donald Trump for spreading “misinformation” after Trump said the country would not be allowed to attend the G20 summit next year at his golf club in Doral, Florida.
The president said Wednesday in a Truth Social post that he has barred South Africa from the gathering of the world’s largest economies because the country’s government is persecuting white farmers.
It’s an assertion that officials in South Africa, which has long been plagued by racial apartheid, have said is false when repeatedly criticized by Trump.
Following Trump’s announcement, a statement from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office once more fought back against the widely rejected claims that white Afrikaner farmers are being killed and having their land taken away.
“It is regrettable that despite the efforts and numerous attempts by President Ramaphosa and his administration to reset the diplomatic relationship with the US, President Trump continues to be vindictive and seek to apply punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions about our country,” the statement read.
Trump seized on the issue after bringing Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, into his orbit at the start of his second term.
During an extraordinary White House meeting in May, Trump ambushed Ramaphosa about the alleged attacks on white farmers, and played a minutes-long video of events in South Africa.
“Death, death, death, horrible death,” Trump said. South African officials contest the apparent extremism depicted in the video.
When Trump said at one point in the meeting that white farmers are being “executed,” Ramaphosa countered that “they’re not.”
Trump administration policies underline how the president sees the issue. While he suspended the U.S. refugee program in January, the few entering the country since are mostly white South Africans.
This latest back-and-forth with Trump comes after the president declined to send an American government delegation to last weekend’s G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Despite the boycott, Trump still took umbrage at South Africa for refusing to hand over its G20 hosting responsibilities to a senior U.S. Embassy representative when the summit ended.
“Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year,” Trump posted, adding that he was halting all payments and subsidies to the country.
Trump made the announcement about hosting next year’s G20 summit in September.
In its statement, South Africa referenced the U.S. decision to send a local embassy official to the handover. It said it “does not appreciate insults from another country about its membership and worth in participating in global platforms.”