White House shuts down reports US backtracked on Trump’s G20 boycott

The White House reiterated Thursday that the U.S. will not send a delegation to the upcoming G20 conference in South Africa, calling reports claiming the opposite “fake news.” 

President Donald Trump said earlier in November that U.S. officials would skip the annual conference, which brings together 19 nations to discuss global economic stability and development, over South Africa’s reported human rights abuses. 

“Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Nov. 7. “No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.”

Media reports and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, however, have claimed that the U.S. will send a delegation to the summit, which is set to kick off Saturday. 

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President Trump announced on Truth Social earlier in November that the U.S. would skip the G20 conference in South Africa over claims of human rights abuses in the country.  (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When approached for comment on claims that the U.S. backtracked and will send a delegation, a White House official said such claims were “fake news.”

“This is fake news. The chargé d’affaires in Pretoria will attend the handover ceremony as a formality, but the United States is not joining G20 discussions,” a White House official told Fox News Digital Thursday. 

The G20 Summit is scheduled to be held in South Africa from Nov. 22 to Nov. 23. (Nicolas Tucat/AFP via Getty Images; Wikus De Wet/AFP via Getty Images)

Ramaphosa, speaking Thursday at a G20 event in Johannesburg, told delegates and media that, “We have received notice from the United States, a notice where we are still in discussions with them, about a change of mind about participating in one shape, form or other in the (G20) Summit.”

Ramaphosa added, “So the discussions are still ongoing, it’s come at a late hour before the summit begins, so it needs to engage in those type of discussions to see how practical it is, and what it finally really means.”

“In a way, I see this as a positive sign, very positive, because, as I’ve often said, boycott politics never works.” 

Ramaphosa went on to make a reference that if the U.S. does not take part, it is “outside the tent.”

He added: “The United States needs to be here, so it’s pleasing to hear that there is a change of approach, and so we are still discussing how that will manifest.”  

Fox News Digital reached out to Ramaphosa’s office for response to the White House official’s statement Thursday but did not immediately receive a reply. 

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Trump had a fiery Oval Office moment with Ramaphosa back in May when he confronted the South African president over claims White Afrikaner South African farmers were being slaughtered in the nation. The White House played video footage for Ramaphosa and his cohort that showed white crosses marking alleged graves lining a road in South Africa. 

Cyril Ramaphosa waves as he arrives ahead of his inauguration as President, at the Union Buildings in Tshwane, South Africa, Wednesday June 19, 2024. (Kim Ludbrook/Pool Photo via AP)

“Now this is very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites — over a thousand — of White farmers,” Trump said during the tense Oval Office moment. “And those cars are lined up to pay love on a Sunday morning. Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there is approximately a thousand of them. They’re all White farmers. The family of White farmers. And those cars aren’t, driving, they are stopped there to pay respects to their family member who was killed. And it’s a terrible sight. I’ve never seen anything like it. On both sides of the road, you have crosses. Those people are all killed.” 

“Have they told you where that is, Mr. President? I’d like to know where that is. Because this I’ve never seen,” Ramaphosa then asked Trump. 

“I mean, it’s in South Africa, that’s where,” Trump responded. 

“We need to find out,” Ramaphosa said.  

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White South Africans supporting President Donald Trump and South African and U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk gather in front of the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, Feb. 15, 2025, for a demonstration.  (Marco Longari/Getty Images)

The State Department the same month announced that the U.S. was welcoming South African refugees who were victims of “government-sponsored racial discrimination” in their homeland. 

The South African government has slammed the Trump administration’s refugee efforts, arguing claims of White genocide in the country have been discredited. 

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“The South African Government wishes to state, for the record, that the characterisation of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical. Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution, is not substantiated by fact,” the South African government said in a statement on Nov. 8 in response to Trump’s Truth Social post announcing the U.S. would skip the summit. 

China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Argentina’s Javier Milei are also skipping the summit but are sending delegations in their place, The Associated Press reported. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Tilsley, Morgan Phillips and Greg Norman contributed to this report.