G20 turns battleground in US vs SA over ‘white genocide', Trump's claim gets a sharp rebuttal: The row, explained

As the diplomatical human relationship betwixt the United States and due south Africa continues to deteriorate followers an immediate dispute over attending G20 summits, SA President Cyril Ramaphosa has hit back at his US counterpart Donald Trump.

After Trump repeatedly made allegations — widely discredited — that South Africa's black-majority government "persecutes the white minority", Ramaphosa dismissed his words as "blatant misinformation". He affirmed South Africa's status as a founding member of the G20 even as Trump said he won't invite the country to next year's summit in the US.

President Trump had announced on Wednesday that he is “barring South Africa from participating” in the Group of 20 summit next year at his Miami-area club, and "will stop all payments and subsidies to the country".

In a social media post, the Republican president claimed that South Africa "refused to hand over its G20 hosting responsibilities to a senior representative of the US Embassy when the summit ended" in Johannesberg in November.

He called South Africa “a country worthy of membership anywhere”, and repeated his claims on race relations in the country.

He again said that white Afrikaners — descendants mainly of Dutch, French, and German colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century — are being “violently persecuted” in South Africa. He also said white farmers in South Africa are being “killed” and that their land being seized. This is a claim that South Africa — which emerged in the 1990s from decades of racial apartheid by a white supremacist government — has rejected as "baseless".

President Ramaphosa addressed the nation on Sunday, describing as “blatant misinformation” Trump's repeated claims that South Africa was committing “genocide against Afrikaners”.

The South African government and others, including some Afrikaners themselves, say Trump's claims are the result of misinformation, noted a report by the Associated Press. Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948-1994, which led to decades of hostility between them and South Africa’s black majority.

The Trump administration — influenced in part by Trump's ex-BFF Elon Musk, who has white South African origins — has announced it would restrict the number of refugees admitted annually to the US to 7,500, with most of the spots reserved for white South Africans. This decision followed the administration welcoming a group of 59 white South Africans as refugees in May.

In the immediate, the row intensified over the transfer of the G20’s rotating presidency.

Trump claimed South Africa refused to transfer the presidency to a senior embassy representative. But Pretoria countered that it carried out the handover even when it considered the US decision to appoint a local embassy official for it “an insult”.

The handover ceremony occurred at South Africa’s Foreign Ministry building after the summit as the US was not formally present at the summit, South African officials said.

The US boycott also meant that the Trump administration did not sign the meeting’s declaration. Trump had previously expressed opposition to the agenda, especially parts that focused on climate change. Trump is among the best-known climate-change deniers of the world.

A statement from Ramaphosa’s office later "noted the regrettable statement by President Donald Trump on South Africa’s participation in the 2026 G20 meetings", and pushed back, stating that Trump "continues to apply punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions”.

South Africa has further been a target for Trump since the start of the year, with his administration casting the country as anti-American, because of its diplomatic ties with China, Russia and Iran.

Ramaphosa dismissed the idea that his country could be excluded from G20: “South Africa is and will remain a full, active and constructive member of the G20.” He also noted that US businesses and civil society groups engaged actively in G20-related events in Johannesburg in November.

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