Thursday, 27 November 2025.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes the reckless announcement by United States President Donald Trump that South Africa will not be invited to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami. This move is neither justified nor legal, and a brazen, vindictive attempt to undermine South Africa’s sovereignty and punish our nation for refusing to bow to imperial coercion.

Trump’s pretence that South Africa somehow “refused” to hand over the G20 Presidency to a U.S Embassy official is crude and dishonest. The truth is that Trump first refused to attend the 2025 G20 Summit in Johannesburg, announcing a political boycott in an attempt to pressure other nations to follow him. When it became clear that no G20 member supported this stunt, and that the summit would proceed smoothly without him, he suddenly reversed himself and tried to save face by sending representatives at the last minute.

Despite the U.S’s absence, South Africa successfully secured a full Leaders’ Declaration, something Trump believed would collapse without American participation. When the time came for the handover of the Presidency, South Africa conducted it in a diplomatic, low-key manner appropriate to the situation, and the handover did in fact occur. What Trump is now angry about is not that the handover did not happen, but that it did not take place with the pomp and senior-level recognition he expected after snubbing the summit.

It is this sequence of self-inflicted diplomatic embarrassments: refusing to attend, changing his mind too late, being ignored by other world leaders, and seeing South Africa deliver a successful summit without him, that has now produced Trump’s tantrum and the absurd suggestion that he has the power to uninvite South Africa from the G20.

Throughout this affair, Trump has repeatedly attacked South Africa over a so-called white genocide — an allegation that remains baseless, unsubstantiated, and rejected by international bodies and the global community. The EFF warns that these repeated attacks are not moral outrage but a tactic to retaliate against South Africa’s foreign policy decisions that do not serve the U.S’s interests, particularly standing with Palestine and taking their ally-in-genocide Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). We recognise this as the same pattern the U.S has used previously: manufacturing false claims of mass human-rights abuse to justify sanctions, isolation, and coercive diplomacy.

Moreover, the G20 is premised on sovereign equality among member states; the presidency rotates annually among member countries precisely to avoid domination by any single power. There is no clause in the G20’s charter, founding documents, or publicly accepted rules that gives any member, whether current president or former, the power to unilaterally expel or ban another member state from participation. Membership in the G20 is inherent to sovereign states that meet its membership criteria and it cannot be revoked at the whim of another member.

If the U.S or any other country succeeded in unilaterally “banning” a fellow member because of political disagreement, the entire multilateral framework of the G20 would collapse. Such a precedent would turn the G20 from a forum of cooperation into a platform for power politics, blackmail, and exclusion. We therefore call on all other G20 member states to publicly reaffirm South Africa’s rightful standing in the grouping. They must defend the principle of sovereign equality and refuse to legitimise any attempt by the U.S to weaponise its temporary presidency for exclusionary politics.

Beyond diplomacy, this affront by Trump carries dangerous and practical implications. With South Africa having qualified for the upcoming FIFA World Cup to be hosted in the U.S next year, the same mindset that now tries to expel us from G20 could attempt interference in sport. The EFF warns the international sporting community, especially FIFA, to remain vigilant and resist any attempt to politicise or de-legitimise South Africa’s participation.

At its core, Trump’s statement is about power, imperial arrogance, and punishment. The EFF rejects this petty retaliation, and insists that the G20 must remain an equal and multilateral space for sovereign nations.

ISSUED BY ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Sinawo Thambo (National Spokesperson) 072 629 7422

Thembi Msane (National Spokesperson) 061 467 8169

Andiswa Madikazi (Parliament Media Liason) 069 516 4924

Thato Lebyane (Media Inquiries) 078 563 1581