US President Donald Trump has put to rest speculation over his attendance of the G20 Summit in South Africa in November.
Answering journalists’ questions from his Oval Office on Thursday, the US president said he would not be coming to South Africa for the summit, the SABC
first reported.
Trump said: “I will not be going this year. It is in South Africa, and I won’t be going. JD [Vance] will be going, the vice-president, and he looks forward to it. But I will not be going.”
South Africa is to hand over the G20 Presidency to the US at the summit.
Casting doubt on South Africa’s G20 Presidency in April, he took to the Truth Social platform to peddle disinformation about South Africa’s Expropriation Act and posted: “How could we be expected to go to South Africa for the very important G20 meeting when land confiscation and genocide are the primary topic of conversation?
“They are taking the land of white farmers and then killing them and their families. The media refuses to report on this. The United States has held back all contributions to South Africa. Is this where we want to be for the G20? I don’t think so!”
Then, aboard Air Force One in July, he told reporters he would likely attend the summit.
“I think maybe I’ll send somebody else because I’ve had a lot of problems with South Africa. They have some very bad policies,” he said at the time. Trump has consistently been peddling disinformation about South Africa’s transformation policies.
