Trump says US officials will not attend G-20 summit in South Africa

No U.S. officials will attend the Group of 20 summit in South Africa this month, President Donald Trump said Friday, repeating his claim that White South Africans there are being murdered and oppressed — an allegation that lacks any evidence.

In a social media post, Trump said the United States would not be represented at the summit — which brings together officials and leaders of the world’s largest economies — “as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.”

The theme for the summit in Johannesburg in two weeks is “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability.” Trump added that he was looking forward to hosting the gathering next year, when it is set to be held at his Doral golf resort in Florida. He shelved a similar proposal during his first term over criticism of self-dealing.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that White farmers are being persecuted in South Africa — also a common talking point of his former ally Elon Musk, who was born there.

In his post Friday, Trump said Afrikaners and other South Africans of European descent “are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” During his first term, he suggested — without evidence — that White farmers in South Africa were being killed on a “large scale,” a myth spread by white supremacists.

South African officials have rejected the claims. The country has a high crime rate and does not release crime statistics based on race, but its President Cyril Ramaphosa and other officials noted during a May meeting with Trump that White farmers were not disproportionately threatened.

In a Saturday statement, a spokesperson for South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said that it had noted Trump’s “regrettable” social media post. “The claim that this community faces persecution is not substantiated by fact,” the statement added, referring to Afrikaners.

In February, a court in South Africa said claims that a “white genocide” was taking place in the country were “clearly imagined and not real,” as part of a ruling over an estate.

South Africa earlier this year enacted a law which, in rare cases, allows the government to expropriate land without compensation. The law is part of the country’s efforts to address the legacy of apartheid, under which Black South Africans were mostly prohibited from owning land.

White people make up about 7% of the population in South Africa but own almost three-quarters of the farmland, according to the country’s 2017 land audit.

In February, Trump signed an executive order to halt aid to South Africa over the land expropriation issue. The administration has since focused on accepting White South Africans into the U.S. as refugees while drastically curtailing resettlement of refugees from elsewhere.

The administration aims to fill as many as 7,000 of a maximum 7,500 annual refugee placements into the U.S. with White South Africans, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post and people familiar with the matter.