BRICs-US rivalry at play as Trump say US will snub G20 summit in South Africa

The United States of America (USA) will snub the G20 Summit in South Africa, one of the five original BRICs member states that has since expanded to eleven members since 2024 with President Donald Trump terming hosting by Johannesburg a “total disgrace”.

President Trump confirmed that US will not attend the G20 summit in South Africa over widely discredited claims that white people are being persecuted in the country.

The US president said it was a “total disgrace” that South Africa is hosting the meeting, where leaders from the world’s largest economies will gather in Johannesburg later this month.

South Africa is among the member states of BRICS alongside Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Others are Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia.

Diplomacy and Foreign Relations analysts say Trumps decision is a geopolitical power play of balance of power between US and BRICs.

“President’s Trump declaration that US will not take part in the G20 Summit in South Africa manifests a clear power play and geopolitical dynamics of balance of power in a multipolar world with the emergence of BRICs. Africa is a battle ground of great powers in projecting their foreign policy and global influence,” Executive Director of Governance and Diplomacy Associates (GDA Associates), a regional think tank, Kinyuru Munuhe who also doubles as a specialist in a Diplomacy, Foreign Relations and Strategic Communications told The Informer Media Group.

Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: “It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa.

“Afrikaners (people who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” he wrote.

“No US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue.”

South Africa’s government said the claims of a white genocide are “widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence”.

The claims were dismissed as “clearly imagined” by a South African court in February.

Trump had earlier said South Africa should not be in the G20 at all, and that he would send vice-president JD Vance, instead of attending himself.

But now the White House says no US official will go.

Every year, a different member state hosts the G20 and sets the agenda for the summit – with the US due to take its turn after South Africa.

The South African foreign ministry said in a statement: “The South African government wishes to state, for the record, that the characterisation of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical.

“Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution, is not substantiated by fact.”

Since returning to office in January, Trump has repeatedly accused South Africa of discriminating against its white minority, including in May when he confronted his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office.

The Trump administration has given Afrikaners refugee status, on the basis of the discredited “genocide” claims. Last week, the White House announced plans to cap refugee admissions at a record low, and give priority to white South Africans. The South African government has pointed to the “limited uptake” of the offer by South Africans.