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- Eighteen friends of Trump: the United States wanted to exclude South Africa from the G20
Eighteen friends of Trump: the United States wanted to exclude South Africa from the G20
South Africa will not receive an invitation to the G20 summit, which will be held next year in Miami. This statement was made by the American leader Donald Trump. He also decided to stop all payments to Pretoria. Poland dreams of taking South Africa's place in the G20, but the US president cannot exclude the Republic of South Africa from the G20. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
I fit in for the farmers
"South Africa has demonstrated to the whole world that it is not a country worthy of membership anywhere, and we are immediately stopping all payments and subsidies to them," US President Donald Trump wrote on the Truth Social network. He also added that South Africa will not be invited to the G20 summit, which will be held in Miami next year.
According to the head of state, the reason for such measures, as well as the refusal of the American delegation to come to the G20 summit in Johannesburg, was the unwillingness of the Government of the Republic of South Africa to recognize and solve the problem of the "genocide of white people."
Trump claims that the South African authorities allow the land to be taken away from the descendants of European colonists and "simply kill them."
In addition, as the American leader explained, South Africa refused to transfer the G20 presidency to a senior representative of the US Embassy.
Since the beginning of his presidential term, Donald Trump has been constantly criticizing the South African authorities. In February of this year, he ordered to stop providing assistance to the country due to violations of the rights of Afrikaners (the white population of South Africa, descendants of European colonists).
A new law has been introduced in the country that allows land to be seized if it is not being used or if its redistribution is in the public interest. The authorities of the Republic of South Africa explained at the time that this rule was aimed at correcting the mistakes made during apartheid, when black residents of the country had their land taken away and they themselves were forcibly relocated to other places of residence.
At the same time, at the moment, most of the agricultural land belongs to the white population.
Golf didn't help
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa flew to Washington in May to establish relations with Donald Trump. At first, everything went smoothly: the leaders discussed golf, one of the main interests of the US president. Ramaphosa included Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, white-skinned golfers from South Africa, in his delegation, brought a 14 kg golf book to the US president and thanked the American leader for his help during the pandemic.
However, the situation soon changed — billionaire Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and has recently been actively criticizing his homeland, joined the presidents, and they talked about the "genocide" of the white population in South Africa.
On the eve of the visit, the US authorities defiantly recognized 59 white South Africans as refugees, claiming that they were fleeing violence and discrimination in their country.
Trump prepared thoroughly for the meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House, showing several videos of the burial site of white farmers to those present in the Oval Office. After that, the American president showed photos of white South Africans, who, according to him, were killed.
"It's a terrible sight, I've never seen anything like it," Trump commented on the pictures and videos.
After that, many media outlets compared the reception given to the president of South Africa with the one that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky received at the White House at the end of February.
Ramaphosa tried to put the brakes on the scandal by rejecting the accusations. He stated that this was the first time he had seen something like this, and also noted that many crimes were committed in the country, but their victims were often black citizens of the country.
The Head of State added that there would have been no white ministers in his delegation during the genocide. The President of the Republic of South Africa also made a counteroffer to Trump to approach solving "public problems" in a businesslike way - to help his country with money, trade deals and investments. However, the American leader ignored this idea.
A breakdown in relationships
After the visit of the South African president to the White House, US relations with South Africa have become even more tense. Trump refused to go to the G20 summit, which was held on November 22-23 in Johannesburg. Svetlana Lukash, Russia's sherpa in the G20, said that even representatives of the American embassy in South Africa were not present at the summit. One of them appeared at the final ceremony, where South Africa was supposed to transfer the powers of the G20 chairman to the United States. However, the Republic of South Africa refused to do so.
Besides Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were not present at the G20 summit in Johannesburg. Then French leader Emmanuel Macron diagnosed the G20: the group is "probably coming to the end of its cycle" and may "lose the meaning of its existence."
Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the Central Research Institute of Higher School of Economics, in an interview with Izvestia, urged not to rush to conclusions.
— I don't think we are talking about South Africa's exclusion from the G20, rather about Donald Trump's colossal contempt for multilateral institutions, for the rules established in these multilateral institutions and associations, and disregard for relevant rules and procedures. It is impossible to exclude South Africa from the group where decisions are made by consensus," the analyst believes.
He believes that after the American presidency, South Africa will return to full-fledged work within the framework of the G20.
"I also do not rule out that maybe at some other level, not at a high or top political level, but at a working, expert level, the Americans will invite representatives of South Africa to events related to the G20," the political scientist believes.
Poland wants to join the G20
Meanwhile, amid disagreements between Washington and Pretoria, Poland wanted to take South Africa's place in the G20. After meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski "urged the United States, as chairman, to invite Poland to the G20 in 2026, which, according to him, "joined the club of countries with trillion-dollar economies."
Subsequently, Trump invited his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki to a summit in Miami. Warsaw has repeatedly asked to join the G20, and Polish representatives have been invited to the association's summits, but only as observers.
Suslov believes that Poland's invitation is a voluntarist whim of the American leader.
— He doesn't like South Africa, but he likes Poland, so he wants to see the second country, but not the first. But in order to include Poland in the activities of the G20 group, consensus is needed, and there will not be one, so Trump cannot make Warsaw a member of the association, the political scientist is sure.
According to the expert, given how the American president ignores the rules established in the association, other members of the association should boycott either completely or partially the American presidency.
"However, no one will do this, given the importance that other G20 members attach to relations with the United States," the expert concluded.
Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute of International Political and Economic Strategies, notes that the G20 is turning into a new platform.
— It is becoming not just a secondary platform, but with such a perception in the world, which can now change a lot. In some places, this will even be useful, because the shift in the focus of the G20 from issues of economics and crisis management to gender diversity has hindered, perhaps, all its participants who are not associated with liberal globalist trends, the expert believes.
According to the analyst, there are two possible ways out of the situation.
"Either the G20 will turn into a purely protocol event, where an abstract resolution "for all good things" will be adopted by inertia, or the healthy forces of the G20 will configure a new constructive agenda in the remaining time, which can be discussed, since everyone has gathered," the expert summed up.
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