Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States would not attend the G20 Summit scheduled for November 22-23 in South Africa, citing what he described as ‘human rights violations.’ He referred to widely debunked reports about the ‘killing’ of whites in South Africa and their eviction from their lands.
Trump added that this year’s acceptance of refugees into the United States would largely focus on ‘Afrikaners,’ who are primarily descendants of Dutch settlers and constitute the majority of the white population in South Africa.
South African officials are increasingly resentful of Trump’s claims that ‘Afrikaners’ are being ethnically cleansed, denying that anyone faces racial discrimination in the predominantly black country. He continued: ‘There may be a view that we should not engage with the United States. (But) sometimes you have to talk to people who may not be very friendly… to advance the interests of your people.’
