JOHANNESBURG — President Trump announced that no U.S. officials will attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg later this month, citing “human rights” concerns; Vice President JD Vance had been expected to represent the administration. On Truth Social, Trump said, “It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa. Afrikaners… are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” and has previously suggested South Africa should be expelled from the G20.
Since returning to office, Trump has repeatedly targeted South Africa: he publicly accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of seizing white-owned land during a White House meeting in May, cut U.S. aid to the country, expelled South Africa’s ambassador to Washington, imposed 30% tariffs, and amplified debunked claims of a “white genocide.” His administration has also prioritized Afrikaners for fast-track refugee status even as it curtailed refugee admissions from many other countries.
South African officials have pushed back with statistics showing Black people are disproportionately affected by violent crime and that whites continue to own the majority of commercial farmland. But the White House narrative has persisted, prompting a response from some Afrikaners themselves.
More than 40 prominent Afrikaners — including writers, journalists, musicians, university lecturers and clergy — signed an open letter rejecting the portrayal of Afrikaners as racial victims and refusing to be used to justify U.S. policy. “We reject the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa,” the letter said. “We are not pawns in America’s culture wars.”
The signatories acknowledged historical wrongs: Afrikaners and other settlers colonized the country and Afrikaner-led governments established apartheid, which denied the Black majority political rights and suppressed dissent. They said, however, that as citizens of post-apartheid South Africa they have worked to build the nation and that singling out Afrikaners as victims of multiracial democracy damages hard-won relationships.
Veteran Afrikaner journalist Max du Preez, a signatory, told NPR the U.S. rhetoric amounted to “the abuse of our ethnic identity to further the MAGA movement’s interests.” He said there is no genocide in South Africa, no race-based persecution, and that the constitution protects every citizen’s rights. “Not a single square inch of white-owned land has been confiscated since we became a democracy in 1994,” du Preez said. “Please stop lying about us and using us as pawns.”
Agricultural representatives who work with white farmers have warned that U.S. sanctions or boycotts would harm their businesses too. Christo van der Rheede, who represented farmers as head of South Africa’s largest agricultural organization and now leads the FW de Klerk Foundation, urged unity in refuting Trump’s claims. He warned that a U.S. boycott based on falsehoods would hurt American business interests in South Africa and undermined the G20’s role in fostering global cooperation.
Not all Afrikaner groups share the signatories’ stance. Some organizations have embraced Trump’s position, traveled to the U.S. to promote the “white genocide” narrative, and lobbied lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The South African government responded calmly to the announcement. Chrispin Phiri, spokesman for the Department of International Relations, said he expected the Johannesburg summit to be significant even without U.S. participation and suggested that the absence would hurt the U.S. more than the G20. European leaders are set to attend and China’s Xi Jinping is expected. South Africa’s G20 theme—”solidarity, equality and sustainability”—has drawn criticism from some U.S. officials; in February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that South Africa was “using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change.”
