Global support rallies behind SA after President Trump's ban

TENSIONS between Pretoria and Washington DC reached a high this week after US President Donald Trump announced that South Africa would be barred from the 2026 G20 Summit and face the immediate suspension of all US financial support.

- YASMINE JACOBS

PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa speaks at this year's G20 Leaders Summit held at the Nasrec Expo Centre. | ITUMELENG ENGLISH/Independent Newspapers

(ITUMELENG ENGLISH/Independent Newspapers)

However, several politicians and foundations weighed in on the matter, defending South Africa’s right to be at next year’s G20 Summit.

The FW de Klerk Foundation issued a definitive statement on Thursday, asserting that South Africa is an equal, sovereign member of the G20 and that the nation “will not be bullied out of global forums by misinformation”.

The Foundation’s statement, issued by Ismail Joosub, directly confronted President Trump’s justification for the punitive action, which was based on allegations that the South African government ignores “horrific human rights abuses endured by Afrikaners and other descendants”.

This comes after Trump had posted on Truth Social that South Africa was “killing white people and randomly allowing their farms to be taken from them”.

The FW de Klerk Foundation declared that Trump’s claims regarding “genocide” and state-sanctioned land seizures were “wholly false allegations” and a “torrent of disinformation”.

“These statements are not only factually incorrect; they are diplomatically untenable,” the Foundation stated. “G20 membership is not determined by the host country... no single state - including the United States - has the authority to unilaterally expel another.”.