South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has been disinvited from the Group of Seven (G7) summit scheduled for June in the French town of Evian, after Washington threatened to boycott the gathering if Pretoria was present.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told reporters that France withdrew the invitation it could not risk the absence of a key G7 member, and confirmed the decision came directly as a result of sustained American pressure. “We are told that the Americans threatened to boycott the G7 if South Africa was invited,” Magwenya said.
The invitation itself had been a personal gesture from French President Emmanuel Macron, who extended it to Ramaphosa during last year’s Group of Twenty (G20) summit in Johannesburg. The G7, which groups the world’s leading industrialised nations, routinely invites non-member countries to participate in select discussions. This year’s guest list also includes Brazil, India and South Korea.
The disinvitation marks the latest in a series of diplomatic blows. President Donald Trump previously imposed tariffs of 30 percent on South African exports, the steepest applied to any nation in sub-Saharan Africa, though the United States Supreme Court has since struck down that policy. Trump also publicly confronted Ramaphosa in the Oval Office over widely disputed claims of a white genocide against Afrikaner farmers, and boycotted the G20 summit in Johannesburg in November.
The Trump administration has additionally clashed with Pretoria over South Africa’s decision to bring a genocide case against Israel, a close American ally, before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Despite the setback, Pretoria struck a measured tone. Magwenya said the development would have no bearing on South Africa’s ties with France, and stressed that Pretoria remained committed to constructive engagement with Washington. “The diplomatic relationship between the United States of America and South Africa predates the Trump administration and will outlive the current White House term of office,” he said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has previously said he would seek to persuade Trump to extend an invitation to South Africa, arguing that G7 and G20 formats should not be made smaller without good reason.
NewsGhana previously reported on Trump’s decision to exclude South Africa from the 2026 G20 summit in Miami.
