By Mark Ogagan
US President Donald Trump reopened contentious issues with South Africa on Tuesday, saying he did not plan to attend the G20 summit scheduled for that country in November, despite debunked claims of white citizens being systematically persecuted and killed in the country.
Asked aboard Air Force One if he planned to attend the leaders’ summit, Trump said: “No, I think maybe I’ll send somebody else, because I’ve had a lot of problems with South Africa.”
“They have some very bad policies… A lot of people are being killed. So I think I probably won’t. I’d like to, but I don’t think I will.”
Trump took aim at South Africa early in his second term, fixating on claims elevated by his then-ally Elon Musk — who was born in the country — of systematic persecution of white citizens.
Washington has been particularly critical of a land expropriation law signed in January that aims to redress historical inequalities from the apartheid era of white minority rule.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected US assertions that the law will be used to arbitrarily confiscate white-owned land.
In a stunning White House meeting in May, Trump ambushed Ramaphosa by playing a video with reporters present that he purported showed a “genocide” against the country’s white minority.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year boycotted a G20 meeting of foreign ministers in Johannesburg.
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