By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will skip a Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in South Africa next week, sources familiar with his plans told Reuters, marking the second time this year he has opted against attending a G20 meeting in the host country.
A Treasury official confirmed that Michael Kaplan, acting undersecretary for international affairs, will represent the department at the July 17-18 meeting in Durban, South Africa instead.
Bessent skipped South Africa’s first G20 finance meeting in February to attend President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting in Washington. Finance ministers from China, Japan, India and Canada also skipped the meeting in Cape Town focused on tackling global poverty, as did the European Union’s top economic official.
Bessent’s February decision came amid rising tensions between Washington and Pretoria as Trump threatened to cut off funding for South Africa, accusing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government of confiscating land from white South Africans. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also skipped a February G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa.
In May, Trump declined to say whether he would attend a G20 leaders summit in South Africa in November, after ambushing Ramaphosa at the White House with explosive false claims of white genocide and land seizures in Africa’s largest economy.
On Monday, Trump sent Ramaphosa a letter informing him that imports from South Africa would be subject to a 30% tariff starting next month, unless the country agrees to reduce its trade barriers to U.S. goods — one of more than a dozen countries to get similar warnings.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; writing by David Lawder; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
