Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he will skip the G-20 summit slated to be held in Johannesburg amid tensions between President Trump, tech billionaire Elon Musk and the host country South Africa.
“I will NOT attend the G20 summit in Johannesburg,” Rubio wrote in a Wednesday post on the social platform X. “South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change.”
Rubio added that his job is to “advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a controversial law late last month allowing the state to seize land without compensation in hopes of addressing wealth and racial discrepancies. During apartheid, the racial wealth inequality in the country skyrocketed and South Africa is still grappling with the lasting impact today.
On Sunday, Trump threatened to cut off U.S. funding to South Africa, accusing the African nation of “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”
He wrote on Truth Social that a ”massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum, is happening for all to see,” although he did not give exact details.
“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” Trump wrote in the post. “Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
Ramaphosa, in response, said that the South African government “has not confiscated any land.”
The South African president argued the recently-adopted law is “not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution.”
“South Africa, like the United States of America and other countries, has always had expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners,” he said. “We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest.”
Musk, a close Trump ally who was born in South Africa, chimed in, asking Ramaphosa “Why do you have openly racist ownership laws?”
G-20, an intergovernmental forum, was created in 1999 and gathers the world’s largest economies.
