Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says there is not much the South African government can do if the US bars its delegation from attending this year’s G20 Leaders Summit by refusing South African delegates accreditation.
Speaking to reporters during a media briefing on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Godongwana said the South African government understood that if the US government wished, it could refuse accreditation to its delegation to attend the G20.
“The structure of the G20, for now, is that the founding member on the African continent is South Africa. Subsequent to that, the AU has been accepted as a permanent member. There have been two countries which have been permanent invitees, because we have been trying to increase the voice of permanent invitees. [They] are Nigeria and Egypt.
“I don’t know whether the Americans have blocked Nigeria and Egypt. What we do know is that South Africa is on leave in 2026. We have taken leave. Not because the Americans can chase us out of the G20, but because they hold an important instrument: the accreditation. If you don’t have the accreditation, you can’t get into the venue.”
Since the return of US President Donald Trump to the White House last year, the US government has taken an antagonistic approach to South Africa, parroting falsehoods of a “white genocide” in South Africa and imposing unilateral tariffs on the country.
South Africa held a successful G20 Leaders Summit in Johannesburg last year, which adopted a declaration despite Trump’s absence, as he refused to attend. After the summit, the US claimed the declaration was inappropriately adopted, with Trump threatening to bar South Africa from attending this year’s summit in the US.
Godongwana said the AU, which has a permanent membership in the G20, will have access to the G20 meeting to ensure that the items of the Johannesburg declaration are preserved and engaged with meaningfully.
“We must take this purely as a temporary setback for 2026. [In] 2027 … the president [of the G20] is going to the UK. I doubt the UK would take a similar posture [to the US]. So, it’s a temporary setback for 2026 only,” he said.
Also present at the media briefing, minister of trade, industry and competition Parks Tau said that while South Africa worked to diversify its network of trade partners, it continued to negotiate with the US to secure a trade deal that would address the US unilateral tariffs.
On the sidelines of the WEF, Trump was door-stopped by journalists asking him about his position on whether there was a white genocide occurring in South Africa, to which he responded that “a certain group of people” in the country were being subjected to a “terrible situation”.