Trump welcomes first white South African refugees to US
After suspending the U.S. refugee program, President Trump is making an exception for white South Africans, known as Afrikaners.
WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump said no officials in the U.S. government will attend the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.
Trump announced the boycott in a Nov. 7 post on Truth Social, calling it a “total disgrace” that the G20 will be held in South Africa.
Trump had already announced this week that he planned to skip the G20, set for Nov. 22 and 23 in Johannesburg. But Vice President JD Vance had been set to go in Trump’s place.
“No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue,” Trump said. “I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!”
Trump said Afrikaners ‒ white South African farmers of mostly Dutch descent in the majority black nation ‒ are “being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” The South African government has strongly denied the accusations of racial discrimination, which Trump has made repeatedly over the past year.
The G20 includes countries that make up the world’s largest 19 economies, plus the European Union and the African Union. The organization promotes cooperation to advance global economic interests.
Trump announced in September that he will host the 2026 G-20 Summit at his golf resort in Doral, Florida ‒ the same property, near Miami, where he tried unsuccessfully to convene world leaders during his first term.
Who are the Afrikaners?
For decades, South Africa was controlled under apartheid rule by the country’s white minority, many of them descendants of Dutch colonists. Apartheid, a system of legalized segregation, deprived the majority of citizens of basic rights and forced many Black South Africans to live in ethnic Bantustans. It ended in 1994.
Now many white South Africans, who make up a minority of the population, say they’re unfairly targeted by a new law this year that allows the South African government to seize property for the “public interest,” in some cases without compensation.
Trump’s backing of the Afrikaners goes back to his first term. But he put more forceful support behind the group during his second term after the land seizure policy, known as the Expropriation Act, became law in February.
“I am not going,” Trump said on Nov. 5 during a speech in Miami. “We have a G20 meeting in South Africa. South Africa shouldn’t even be in the Gs anymore because what’s happened there is bad.”
After returning to office in January, Trump suspended the program for admitting refugees into the United States with one exception: white South Africans, who began arriving as refugees into the United States in May.
For 2026, the Trump administration is limiting the number of refugees it will admit into the United States in 2026 to just 7,500 – the lowest in history – and most of those admitted will be white South Africans.
Trump hosted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for an Oval Office meeting in May. But it quickly turned into an ambush as Trump accused the South African leader of overseeing “genocide” against White people and played a video to try to prove the false claim.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.