Ramaphosa won't be embarrassed by Trump - Ntshavheni
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has dispelled claims that US President Donald Trump is planning to embarrass President Cyril Ramaphosa during his visit to the White House.
Ramaphosa will travel to Washington on Wednesday to meet with Trump at the White House to discuss bilateral, regional, and global issues of interest.
Tensions have been rising for months over a range of policy issues, culminating this week in the United States resettling a first group of white Afrikaners that Trump claims are facing "persecution" in South Africa.
The US administration has torn into various South African policies, including its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and a land expropriation law meant to redress historical inequalities that Washington alleges will allow the government to seize white-owned land.
Briefing the media on Thursday, Ntshavheni said the Presidency expects “a high level of decorum”.
"We are not going to the US on our own. We have been invited by President Trump; he is the one who made the public announcement that he is going to meet with us next week, so there is no one who invites a guest to mistreat them.
"We are expecting the highest level of decorum and necessary protocols to be accorded and it doesn't mean that we will agree in all matters, we will differ, but we believe that our relationship with the U.S. is beneficial.
"There are more than 600 companies here in the country, part of their largest automakers, electronics are in the country and telecoms are also big investors in the country, whether it is Google, Amazon or Microsoft, they are here in their huge sizes and they continue to do investments."
-G20 Summit-
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the White House National Security Council has banned “US agencies from all work on the G20 in South Africa”.
"We have not received any information from the US administration about such a ban, we are reading it from the media like everybody else. There hasn't been any official communication to ourselves, we haven't seen any communication from the U.S. administration", said Ntshavheni.
-Budget Speech-
Ntshavheni also confirmed President Cyril Ramaphosa will not attend the Budget 3.0 speech in person but will join virtually next week.
"The president will attend the budget virtually. Of course, he would have wished to attend physically, but unfortunately, the date of the meeting coincides with the date of the tabling of the budget.
"The good thing with our Parliament is that they provide for the hybrid session, and the President will join in the hybrid platform. Should there be ministers with him in the delegation, they will also join through the platform of Parliament because we all need to vote for the budget."
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