Trump won’t participate in G-20 in South Africa, Rubio says

Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested President Donald Trump wouldn’t join a meeting of Group of 20 leaders in South Africa later this year, saying the country has been “consistently unaligned” with US policy.

“We chose not to participate in this year’s G-20, hosted by South Africa, either at the foreign ministers level or the presidents level,” Rubio said Tuesday during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “They clearly, on the global stage and in multiple multinational organizations, have consistently been a vote against America’s interests time and again.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said Monday that the US has been “participating at all G-20 related activities.” He added there’s been no formal communication about Trump’s participation and that the invitation to attend remains open.

“It’s still a long time between now and November, and a lot can still happen,” he said.

Trump was non-committal when asked about the G-20 last week. “South Africa’s out of control and it’s been out of control for a long time,” Trump said May 16 at the White House. Asked if he planned to attend the meeting, he said: “I’m not sure, I’m really not sure.”

Rubio, who skipped the G-20 foreign ministers’ meeting in February, also cited South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel, a top American ally, of committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

South Africa’s position on Israel is “not just off balance, but completely geared towards one side. And it makes one wonder about these allegations that are out there now of foreign influence, including with Iran.”

Trump will host Ramaphosa at the White House Wednesday, as Pretoria seeks to “reset” relations, which have also been frayed by racially charged accusations about persecution of white Afrikaner farmers.

The White House has offered refugee status to members of the South African minority group that Trump claims face “unjust discrimination” under Black-ownership and employment-equity laws.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, South Africa’s government plans to offer Pretoria-born billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump ally, a workaround of local Black-ownership laws for his Starlink internet service to operate in the country.

Ramaphosa, speaking in Washington on Tuesday, also struck an upbeat tone about the meeting and highlighted investments between the countries.

South Africa is facing a “reciprocal tariff” from the US of 30%, which had been suspended for 90 days as it seeks to hammer out some kind of trade framework.

“With unemployment soaring past 30% and the economy’s growth rate averaging less than 1% over the last decade, economic issues trump the political ones for Ramaphosa as he spends the week in the US capital,” analysts at RBC Capital Markets wrote in a note Tuesday. The Afrikaner issue, they wrote, is “way down the priority list.”

When announcing his plans earlier this year to skip the foreign ministers’ meeting, Rubio also said Pretoria was using the G-20 to promote diversity, equity and inclusion policies and focus on climate change, two issues the Trump administration has aggressively sought to exclude from US policies.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also skipped the first finance ministers’ meeting in Cape Town in February, but attended the second session held in Washington on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings last month.

The Washington Post last week reported that the National Security Council had ordered US agencies and departments to suspend work with the G-20, citing sources it didn’t identify.

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