"When US President Donald Trump declared that South Africa should not even be in the G20 and then took to Truth Social on November 7 to announce that no American official would attend this year's summit in Johannesburg on account of a so-called genocide of white farmers in the country, I was not surprised. His outburst was not an exception but the latest expression of a long Western tradition of disciplining African sovereignty."
"Western leaders have long tried to shut down African agency through mischaracterisations, from branding Congolese nationalist Patrice Lumumba a Soviet puppet to calling anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela a terrorist, and Trump's assault on South Africa falls squarely into that pattern. As Africa pushes for a stronger voice in global governance, the Trump administration has intensified efforts to isolate Pretoria. South Africa's growing diplomatic assertiveness, from BRICS expansion to climate finance negotiations, has challenged conservative assumptions that global leadership belongs exclusively to the West."
President Trump publicly denounced South Africa's G20 membership and announced US officials would boycott the summit, citing an alleged genocide of white farmers. US claims portrayed land reform as uncompensated confiscation despite South African law allowing expropriation only through due process and compensation, with constitutional exceptions. Washington halted aid and rolled out a refugee admissions policy that privileged Afrikaners, citing discredited persecution claims. These actions reflect a pattern of Western efforts to discipline African sovereignty through mischaracterisation, echoing past smears of Patrice Lumumba and Nelson Mandela. The US response sought pretexts to isolate Pretoria as it asserted diplomatic agency in BRICS and climate finance.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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