Key topics
- Rubio skips G20 over SA’s land policy, DEI, and climate change stance.
- US-South Africa ties strain over trade, China ties, and Ukraine stance.
- Trump threatens to cut SA aid over land expropriation legislation.
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By John Harney
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he won’t attend a Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg later this month, citing among his reasons South Africa’s efforts to address inequality.
“South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio said in a post on X Wednesday.
It’s unusual for a secretary of state to skip a G-20 summit, and Rubio’s absence carries the risk of the US being left out of deliberations by some of the world’s wealthiest countries. His comments echo President Donald Trump’s criticism of South Africa’s land policy earlier this week and a threat to cut off future funding to the country.
South Africa’s foreign ministry reiterated that no land has been confiscated and that the expropriation legislation announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa last month is similar to eminent domain laws elsewhere in the world. It also also stressed the government’s commitment to addressing global inequality.
“Our G20 presidency is not confined to just climate change but also equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring an equal global system for all,” International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola said in a statement. “These are important principles that we remain open to pursue and engage the United States on.”
Strained Ties
Rubio’s remarks add further strain to relations between the US and South Africa, which counts America as its second-biggest trading partner, after China. Some US lawmakers have called for a review of the two nations’ trade ties over South Africa’s increasingly close relations with China and its refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US provided more than $8 billion in bilateral aid to South Africa over the past two decades, according to a 2023 report from the Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan office that advises Congress. Much of those funds went to fighting AIDS and other development projects, CRS said.
Trump earlier this week said the US would cut off all funding to South Africa over the land legislation. He’s criticized the policy before and his top billionaire backer — South African-born Elon Musk — has spread the baseless conspiracy theory that there’s a “genocide” against White farmers in the country.
The Expropriation Act replaces legislation from 1975 — the height of White-minority rule, known as apartheid, that resulted in vast racial wealth inequality that persists today. White South Africans still own almost three-quarters of farmland, while making up about only 7% of the population. According to World Bank data, South Africa is the most unequal nation in the world.
Songezo Zibi, the leader of the opposition RISE Mzansi party, slammed Rubio for ignoring South Africa’s racist past.
“TRANSLATION: “I will not attend the G20 Summit in Johannesburg unless South Africa re-institutionalises racism, white supremacy and apartheid like the US president is doing in the US,” Zibi said in a post on X in reference to Rubio’s tweet.
South Africa assumed the leadership of the G-20 from Brazil in December, the first African nation to do so. It’s scheduled to host a meeting of foreign ministers Feb. 20-21, and a summit of the group’s leaders in Johannesburg in November, before handing over the mantle to the US.
Read also:
- 🔒 FT’s Gideon Rachman: What the Global South, SA included, gets wrong about Trump
- 🔒 Trump could get real about SA any time: John Matisonn
- Trump threatens to cut US aid over SA expropriation law
© 2025 Bloomberg L.P.
