Top US official skips South Africa over expropriation law

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he won’t attend a Group of 20 summit in Johannesburg later this month, citing among his reasons South Africa’s new land-expropriation law, which has been assailed by President Donald Trump.

“South Africa is doing very bad things. Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change,” Rubio said in a post on X Wednesday night of his decision.

It is unusual for a secretary of state to skip a G-20 summit, and Rubio’s absence carries the risk of the US being left out of deliberations by some of the world’s wealthiest countries, even as the Trump administration has crippled the US Agency for International Development. 

Earlier this week, Trump said the US would cut off all funding to South Africa over land policy. The US has accounted for more than $8 billion in bilateral aid to the country over the last two decades. 

Last month, Cyril Ramaphosa, the country’s president, signed a bill that gives the government the authority to take property in the public interest on the condition that the owner receives “just and equitable” compensation.

It contains a provision for nothing to be paid in some instances, such as when land isn’t being used or has been acquired for speculative purposes with no concrete intention to develop it. 

Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire ally who was born in South Africa, has spread the conspiracy theory of a “genocide” against White farmers in the country. 

Ramaphosa’s political party, the African National Congress, has long advocated expropriation to redress the legacy of Apartheid, which forbade most Black South Africans from owning property.

South Africa hasn’t confiscated any land, Ramaphosa said in a statement on Monday.

His foreign minister defended the law, which he said is similar to the eminent domain principles in the US and the UK.

Nevertheless, the uproar prompted a sell-off of the rand.