SA rules out any boycott of Trump's G20

South Africa has encouraged other G20 member states to strongly express their rejection of the United States barring South Africa from participation in the US G20. But SA has not asked any other country to boycott America’s G20 because America has not invited SA to participate.

President Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya made this clear in a press conference in Pretoria on Monday, 15 December 2025. He was speaking as the G20 sherpas – managers – were about to meet in Washington on Monday for the first meeting of the US G20 Presidency which took over from the SA G20 Presidency on 1 December. At least some G20 members were expected to raise their objections there about the exclusion of SA.

Mangwenya said: “We have strongly asserted that we don’t need to be invited to G20 meetings. We are a full member of the G20. We are a founding member of the G20. Secondly, what the US is seeking to do is an affront to multilateralism, and it must be challenged and it must be rejected by all members of the G20.

“We’ve made that point quite clearly. We have been engaging all other members of the G20 on this matter. We have encouraged members to express quite strongly their own views as they’ve expressed to us their support as well as their rejection of the US’ position and decision in this regard, which was taken unilaterally in a body that takes decision through consensus.

“What we are not going to do, which is not going to be helpful, we’re not going to ask countries to boycott G20 meetings and G20 processes. We were against the US boycott (of SA’s G20). We will not promote any form of boycott.”

But Magwenya said SA would continue to advocate for the championing of issues that it had raised during its presidency to ensure they remained on the G20 agenda. These issued included how to deal with inequality, poverty and climate change, including climate justice.

These were issues that could not be confined to just a single-year presidency, but had to be tackled continually. He added that SA was in discussion with G7 members to ensure these issues were taken up by that forum as the G7 countries were also members of the G20.

Magwenya said there was no update yet on the government’s effort to bring home the South Africans who had been trapped for months fighting for Russia in Ukraine’s Donbas region.

“The process to retrieve those young men remains a very sensitive process. They are in a dangerous environment. They are facing grave, grave danger to their lives.”

Magwenya said Pretoria was still in discussions, particularly with Russian authorities, because SA had information the men were fighting with the Russian military forces.

Magwenya also appeared to defend the efforts of Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Solly Malatsi to enable Elon Musk’s Starlink and other foreign Information and Communication Technology (ICT) companies to invest in South Africa without surrendering 30% of their companies to local owners. Magwenya suggested that if necessary the local ownership law could be amended to allow investment without ceding ownership.

On Friday, Malatsi gazetted a formal policy directive instructing the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to reconsider this local ownership rule. In effect he was asking Icasa to recognise Equity Equivalent Investment Programmes – which allow IT investors such as Musk to invest in other businesses in lieu of ceding ownership of their companies.

Malatsi’s directive has sparked a backlash from the ANC, with even Malatsi’s ANC deputy minister Mondli Gungubele publicly criticising his directive as undermining South Africa’s transformation agenda and self-governance.

But Magwenya noted that it was not only Starlink that had expressed interest in providing services in SA, but also four or five other foreign ICT companies.

He said Malatsi was looking at what could be done – within the law – to accelerate those processes.

“The law is quite clear with respect to the local ownership element for those seeking to be licensed as telecommunications and network services providers, and so that’s what the minister is doing.

“The president has been quite clear that whatever is done must be done within the framework of our laws, and so if it turns out that Icasa cannot do anything beyond what is written in law, then the process will be to look at an amendment of the legislation.

“That is well guided in our statute in terms of how it needs to proceed.”

Magwenya stressed that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa was an independent regulator that would be guided by the law.

“What the minister is doing is to look at how do we accelerate the licensing process of various role players that are seeking to participate in our telecoms and ICT industry in this regard. And so it’s still early days for anybody to speculate what Icasa’s decision is going to be.”

He said notwithstanding Malatsi’s directive, Icasa would have to “exercise its judgment independently and do so in accordance with the law”. DM