South Africa boycott is symbolic

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s unprecedented boycott of next week’s summit of G20 foreign ministers in Johannesburg should leave post-apartheid South Africa’s increasingly pro-Moscow, pro-China and virulently anti-Israel Ramaphosa regime in no doubt about the extent to which it has fallen foul of Donald Trump’s new administration.

The announcement of Mr Rubio’s snub follows Mr Trump’s warning last week – spurred, it is believed, by South African-born Elon Musk – that “South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people (white farmers) VERY BADLY … I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa”.

But it is not just over what Mr Trump previously has termed the “large-scale killing of (white) farmers” in South Africa that Washington and Pretoria have fallen out.

South Africa’s steady drift towards ever-closer ties with Moscow and Beijing – especially the role it is playing in assisting Russian and Chinese plans to develop the BRICS group of nations, which includes Iran, into a major strategic alliance to counter the influence of the Western democracies – riled Washington.

So did the Ramaphosa regime’s virulent hostility to Israel, seen in its warm embrace of notorious Hamas terrorist leaders visiting South Africa and its role in leading the prosecution of the Jewish state for alleged genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Seizing well-run, productive white farms was never going to be good policy.

Neither is siding with Moscow and Beijing within BRICS and lining up with Iran and Hamas against Israel.

The sooner President Cyril Ramaphosa learns that, the better it will be for South Africa and its increasingly impoverished people, black and white alike.