US President Donald Trump announced on Friday via Twitter that no US officials will attend the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa this month, where the US was expected to be represented by Vice President JD Vance.
"It is a scandal that the G20 is being held in South Africa," the president said, adding: "No US government official will attend while human rights abuses there continue."
A Reuters source familiar with the matter confirmed that Vance is no longer expected to travel to South Africa for this summit.
"'Afrikaners' (people descended from Dutch settlers and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and massacred and their lands and farms are being illegally confiscated," Trump wrote on Social Truth.
Trump had repeatedly stated that there was no way he would personally go to South Africa, citing his disagreements with the policy of his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa's government regarding land ownership, as well as his stances on Israel.
In May, during a meeting in the Oval Office, the US president charged that a "genocide" was being carried out against white landowners in South Africa.
The South African government and experts are rejecting the US government's claims of an alleged "genocide", which they describe as a "conspiracy theory" circulating "in far-right circles".
Earlier this year, the US welcomed a first group of white South Africans who were granted asylum. In early February, President Trump froze aid to South Africa, and in March, his administration expelled the country's ambassador from Washington.
