South Africa on Tuesday confirmed that it will withdraw from the Group of 20 (G20) economic forum for the year 2026, because the United States holds the rotating presidency for the year, and relations between Johannesburg and President Donald Trump have been tense.
South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced the withdrawal at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland last week, describing it as a “temporary setback” for his country.
“The structure of the G20, for now, is that the founding member on the African continent is South Africa. Subsequent to that, the AU (African Union) has been accepted as a permanent member. There have been two countries which have been permanent invitees, because we have been trying to increase the voice of permanent invitees. (They) are Nigeria and Egypt,” he said.
“I don’t know whether the Americans have blocked Nigeria and Egypt. What we do know is that South Africa is on leave in 2026. We have taken leave,” he said.
“This is not because the Americans can chase us out of the G20, but they hold an important instrument: the accreditation. If you don’t have the accreditation, you can’t get into the venue, even if you are around. So they will not accredit us,” he said.
Godongwana said he was confident South Africa’s views would be represented at the 2026 G20 summit by the African Union and that Britain would invite South Africa back into the fold when it assumed the rotating presidency in 2027.
The finance minister was apparently referring to President Donald Trump’s statement in November that South Africa, which held the rotating presidency of the G20 before the U.S. took over, would not be invited to attend the 2026 G20 summit in Miami, Florida.
Trump said the U.S. did not attend the 2025 G20 summit in South Africa “because the South African Government refuses to acknowledge or address the horrific Human Right Abuses endured by Afrikaners, and other descendants of Dutch, French, and German settlers.”
“At the conclusion of the G20, South Africa refused to hand off the G20 Presidency to a Senior Representative from our U.S. Embassy, who attended the Closing Ceremony,” he noted in a post on Truth Social.
“Therefore, at my direction, South Africa will NOT be receiving an invitation to the 2026 G20, which will be hosted in the Great City of Miami, Florida next year,” he said.
“South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” he added.
Read the full article here