South African President Cyril Ramaphosa criticized US President Donald Trump's decision not to attend the G20 summit in South Africa later this month, claiming that "boycott politics doesn't work," the AFP reported.
Ramaphosa lamented that the US was "giving up the very important role that they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world" by skipping the summit.
The Trump Administration has accused South Africa of human rights abuses against citizens of European descent, including confiscation of land and murder. President Trump has called the decision to hold the summit in South Africa a "total disgrace" and vowed that "no US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue."
Ramaphosa stated that "boycotting never achieves anything of great impact."
However, South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, of which Ramaphosa is the President, officially endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
In October 2012, the ANC's International Solidarity Conference (ISC) declared its full support for the BDS movement and called for "all South Africans to support the programmes and campaigns of the Palestinian civil society which seek to put pressure on Israel to engage with the Palestinian people to reach a just solution."
South Africa was also subjected to international boycott campaigns during the Apartheid era.