The Trump administration is not planning to invite South Africa to participate in G20 occasions hosted in the United States subsequent yr, a source conversant in the matter instructed NCS.
The exclusion of South Africa from the conferences of the world’s most vital economies is an unprecedented step and would mark the primary time a rustic was outright excluded from them in its greater than 20-year historical past.
The US already boycotted the 2025 assembly in South Africa amid unfounded accusations that the federal government there is committing genocide in opposition to White South Africans.
Instead, the administration plans to invite Poland to take part at an elevated degree on the 2026 gatherings, the source mentioned.
South African Presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya instructed NCS they’ve “heard similar speculation,” however “until we receive official communication, we will take it as mere speculation.”
NCS has requested the White House, the State Department for remark.
Poland, whose president has a heat relationship with US President Donald Trump, is actively in search of membership in the G20.
Karol Nawrocki mentioned after assembly Trump in September that Trump invited him to attend the G20 summit in 2026. That summit shall be hosted on the US president’s golf resort in Doral, Florida, in December 2026.
“It’s right next to the airport. It’s the best location. It’s beautiful,” Trump mentioned in September.
Poland’s finance minister instructed Polish radio station RMF FM final month that, “given that we have had thirty-five years of uninterrupted economic growth and are the twentieth-largest economy in the world, ahead of, among others, Switzerland, our aspirations to join the G20 are entirely justified.”
Meanwhile, relations between the US and South Africa have plummeted underneath the Trump administration. In March, the State Department expelled the South African ambassador to the US, declaring him ‘persona non grata.’ Trump suspended aid to South Africa, alleging discrimination in opposition to White farmers in February.
South Africa wrapped up its chairmanship of the group earlier this month, with out the US current to obtain the gavel as they took on the chairmanship.
NCS’s Nimi Princewill contributed reporting.