Trump Decides to Boycott G20 Summit    11/13 06:01

   U.S. President Donald Trump's decision that the United States government 
boycott the Group of 20 summit next weekend in South Africa is "their loss," 
South Africa's leader said Wednesday.

   CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's decision that 
the United States government boycott the Group of 20 summit next weekend in 
South Africa is "their loss," South Africa's leader said Wednesday.

   South African President Cyril Ramaphosa added that "the United States needs 
to think again whether boycott politics actually works, because in my 
experience it doesn't work."

   Trump announced last week on social media that no U.S. government official 
would attend the Nov. 22-23 meeting of leaders from 19 of the world's richest 
and leading developing economies in Johannesburg, citing his widely rejected 
claims that members of a white minority group in South Africa are being 
violently persecuted and having their land taken from them because of their 
race.

   The U.S. president has for months targeted South Africa's Black-led 
government for criticism over that and a range of other issues, including its 
decision to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in 
an ongoing and highly contentious case at the United Nations' top court.

   "It is unfortunate that the United States decided not to attend the G20," 
Ramaphosa told reporters outside the South African Parliament. "The United 
States by not being at the G20, one must never think that we are not going to 
go on with the G20. The G20 will go on, all other heads of state will be here. 
In the end we will take fundamental decisions and their absence is their loss."

   Ramaphosa added that the U.S. is "giving up the very important role that 
they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world."

   Trump previously confronted Ramaphosa with his baseless claims that the 
Afrikaner white minority in South Africa were being killed in widespread 
attacks when the leaders met at the White House in May. At that meeting, 
Ramaphosa lobbied for Trump to attend this month's G20 summit, the first to be 
held in Africa.

   The G20 was formed in 1999 to bring rich and developing countries together 
to address issues affecting the global economy and international development. 
The U.S., China, Russia, India, Japan, France, Germany, the U.K. and the 
European Union are all members. The U.S. is due to take over the rotating 
presidency of the G20 from South Africa at the end of the year.

   Trump said on Truth Social last week that it was "a total disgrace that the 
G20 will be held in South Africa" and claimed Afrikaners "are being killed and 
slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated."

   Trump had already said he would not attend the summit, but Vice President JD 
Vance was expected to represent the U.S.

   Trump's claims about anti-white violence and persecution in South Africa 
have reflected those made previously by conservative media commentators in the 
U.S. as far back as 2018.

   Trump and others, including South African-born Elon Musk, have also accused 
South Africa's government of being racist against whites because of its 
affirmative action laws that aim to advance opportunities for the Black 
majority who were oppressed under the former apartheid system of racial 
segregation.

   Ramaphosa's government has said the comments are the result of 
misinformation and a lack of understanding of South Africa.

   Relations between the U.S. and its biggest trading partner in Africa are at 
their lowest since the end of apartheid in 1994, and Washington expelled the 
South African ambassador to the U.S. in March over comments he made regarding 
Trump.

   The Trump administration has criticized South Africa's hosting of the G20 
from the outset, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio skipping a G20 
foreign ministers meeting in South Africa in February while calling the host's 
policies "anti-Americanism" and deriding its focus on issues like climate 
change and global inequality.