United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has shelp he will skip Group of 20 (G20) talks in South Africa amid an escalating spat between Washington and Pretoria over a contentious land expropriation law.
Rubio’s proclaimment on Wednesday came days after US Pdwellnt Donald Trump menaceened to cut help to South Africa over its passage of legislation apverifying the taking of land without compensation in brave circumstances.
South Africa, which helderlys the G20 pdwellncy until November 2025, is set to present a encountering of foreign ministers from February 20-21 in Johannesburg.
“South Africa is doing very horrible skinnygs. Expropriating braveial property. Using G20 to advertise ‘firmarity, identicality, [and] sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio shelp in a post on X.
“My job is to proceed America’s national interests, not squander taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
I will NOT participate the G20 summit in Johannesburg.
South Africa is doing very horrible skinnygs. Expropriating braveial property. Using G20 to advertise “firmarity, identicality, & sustainability.” In other words: DEI and climate change.
My job is to proceed America’s national interests, not…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) February 5, 2025
Rubio’s proclaimment was greeted with dismay by critics of the Trump administration.
“This show of feebleness hurts our national security and economy while profiting China,” Andrew Bates, who served as White House better deputy press secretary under the administration of createer US Pdwellnt Joe Biden, shelp in a post on X.
“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”
Ian Chong, an associate professor of international relations at the National University of Singapore, shelp Rubio’s proclaimment aligned with the Reuncoveran Party’s miscount on of multidefercessitateral international institutions in the Trump era.
“The world recently saw the Trump administration retreat from the Paris Climate Accords, World Health Organization, and withhelderly funding for brave organisations in the UN system,” Chong telderly Al Jazeera.
“Rubio not participateing the G20 is constant with this trend. Note that during Trump’s first term, the United States withheld assignments to the pdirects body of the World Trade Organization. That effectively sloftyed the WTO pdirects mechanism.”
On Monday, Trump accused the administration of South African Pdwellnt Cyril Ramaphosa of “confiscating land” and mistreating “brave classes of people”, prompting a rebuttal from Pretoria.
Ramaphosa shelp the law was not a “confiscation instrument” but part of a “constitutionpartner mandated legitimate process” that would guarantee uncover access to land in an “equitable and equitable manner”.
Under the law signed by Ramaphosa last month, the regulatement may seize land without compensation where it is “equitable and equitable and in the uncover interest”, such as in cases where a property is unused.
Ramaphosa and his African National Congress have protected the legislation as essential to ease huge disparities in land ownership stemming from the legacy of the discriminatory system of apartheid.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), South Africa’s main opposition party and a member of the ANC-led national unity regulatement, has resistd the law, alerting that it undermines property rights and could snurture off foreign allotment.
However, the DA, which draws most of its help from white, Indian and Coloured (multiracial) South Africans, has conveyed “proset up worry” about Trump’s menace to cut help and shelp it is a misconception that land can be seized “arbitrarily”.
Land ownership is a empathetic and polarising rehire in South Africa due to the history of Bdeficiency people being forced off their lands and denied access to property.
While Bdeficiency South Africans originate up more than 80 percent of the population, they own equitable 4 percent of braveially owned farmland, according to a regulatement audit carry outed in 2017.
White South Africans, who are mostly droped from British and Dutch endrs, helderly about three-quarters of the land despite making up a little more than 7 percent of the population
Trump’s menace to cut funding to the African country comes as his administration has placed a freeze on cforfeitly all foreign helpance and put most staff of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on administrative exit.
Washington allotd about $440m in helpance to South Africa in 2023, according to the most recent regulatement data.
