{"id":7327,"date":"2025-11-10T20:17:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/how-trumps-support-for-white-south-africans-led-to-a-u-s-boycott-of-the-g20-summit-pbs\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T20:17:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:22","slug":"how-trumps-support-for-white-south-africans-led-to-a-u-s-boycott-of-the-g20-summit-pbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/how-trumps-support-for-white-south-africans-led-to-a-u-s-boycott-of-the-g20-summit-pbs\/","title":{"rendered":"How Trump\u2019s support for white South Africans led to a U.S. boycott of the G20 summit – PBS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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World<\/a><\/p>\n

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CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump says that his government will boycott the Group of 20 summit this month in South Africa over his claims that a white minority group there is being violently persecuted. Those claims have been widely rejected.<\/p>\n

Trump announced Friday on social media that no U.S. government official will attend the Nov. 22-23 summit in Johannesburg \u201cas long as these Human Rights abuses continue.\u201d South Africa\u2019s Black-led government has been a regular target for Trump since he returned to office.<\/p>\n

In February, Trump issued an executive order stopping U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing its treatment of the Afrikaner white minority. His administration has also prioritized Afrikaners for refugee status in the U.S. and says they will be given most of the 7,500 places available this fiscal year.<\/p>\n

The South African government \u2014 and some Afrikaners themselves \u2014 say Trump\u2019s claims of persecution are baseless.<\/p>\n

Descendants of European settlers<\/h3>\n

Afrikaners are South Africans who are descended mainly from Dutch but also French and German colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.<\/p>\n

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948-1994, leading to decades of hostility between them and South Africa\u2019s Black majority. But Afrikaners are not a homogenous group, and some fought against apartheid. There are an estimated 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa\u2019s population of 62 million.<\/p>\n

Afrikaners are divided over Trump\u2019s claims. Some say they face discrimination, but a group of leading Afrikaner business figures and academics said in an open letter last month that \u201cthe narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa\u201d is misleading.<\/p>\n

Afrikaners\u2019 Dutch-derived language is widely spoken in South Africa and is one of the country\u2019s 12 official languages. Afrikaners are represented in every aspect of society. Afrikaners are some of South Africa\u2019s richest entrepreneurs and some of its most successful sports stars, and also serve in government. Most are largely committed to South Africa\u2019s multiracial democracy.<\/p>\n

Trump claims they\u2019re being \u2018killed and slaughtered\u2019<\/h3>\n

Trump asserted that Afrikaners \u201care being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.\u201d The president\u2019s comments are in reference to a relatively small number of attacks on Afrikaner farmers that he and others claim are racially motivated.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong>Trump limits annual U.S. refugees to 7,500. It\u2019ll be mostly white South Africans<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump has also pointed to a highly contentious law introduced by the South African government that allows land to be appropriated from private owners without compensation. Some Afrikaners fear that law is aimed at removing them from their land in favor of South Africa\u2019s poor Black majority. Many South Africans, including opposition parties, have criticized the law, but it hasn\u2019t led to land confiscations.<\/p>\n

Trump first made baseless claims of widespread killing of white South African farmers and land seizures during his first term in response to allegations aired on conservative media personality Tucker Carlson\u2019s former show on Fox News. Trump ordered then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into the allegations, but nothing came of any investigation.<\/p>\n

South Africa rejects the claims<\/h3>\n

The South African government said in response to Trump\u2019s social media post that his claims were \u201cnot substantiated by fact.\u201d It has said that Trump\u2019s criticism of South Africa over Afrikaners is a result of misinformation because it misses the context that Black farmers and farmworkers are also killed in rural attacks, which make up a tiny percentage of the country\u2019s high violent crime rate.<\/p>\n

There were more than 26,000 homicides in South Africa in 2024. Of those, 37 were farm murders, according to an Afrikaner lobby group that tracks them. Experts on rural attacks in South Africa have said the overriding motive for the violent farm invasions is robbery and not race.<\/p>\n

Other pressure on South Africa<\/h3>\n

Trump said it is a \u201ctotal disgrace\u201d that the G20 summit \u2014 a meeting of the leaders of the 19 top rich and developing economies, the European Union and the African Union \u2014 is being held in South Africa. He had already said he wouldn\u2019t attend, and Vice President JD Vance was due to go in his place. The U.S. will take on the rotating presidency of the G20 after South Africa.<\/p>\n

Trump also said in a speech last week that South Africa should be thrown out of the G20.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s criticism of Africa\u2019s most developed economy has gone beyond the issue of Afrikaners. His executive order in February said South Africa had taken \u201caggressive positions towards the United States and its allies,\u201d specifically with its decision to accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza at the United Nations\u2019 top court.<\/p>\n

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa in February after deriding the host country\u2019s G20 slogan of \u201csolidarity, equality and sustainability\u201d as \u201cDEI and climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

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World Nov 10, 2025 2:40 PM EST CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) \u2014 U.S. President Donald Trump says that his government will boycott the Group of 20 summit this month in South Africa over his claims that a white minority group there is being violently persecuted. Those claims have been widely rejected. Trump announced Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}