‘Diplomacy Is Back’: South Africa Boycotts Biden’s ‘Democracy Summit’

South Africa, the most important democratic country on the African continent, is boycotting President Joe Biden’s two-day “democracy summit,” after the Biden administration slapped a hasty travel ban on the country due to the omicron variant.

Many South Africans are resentful of the ban, which came after South African scientists and officials alerted the international  community immediately upon discovering the new coronavirus variant, which apparently did not originate in South Africa.

As foreign affairs journalist Peter Fabricius noted in South Africa’s online independent newspaper, the Daily Maverick:

More than 100 leaders of democracies around the world attended US President Joe Biden’s virtual Summit for Democracy this week. But President Cyril Ramaphosa declined an invitation to attend. Why?

Was it because China had dismissed the summit as a “complete farce” — almost certainly because Taiwan was among the countries invited.

Did Pretoria decline to avoid offending its close ally Beijing? And also perhaps Russia, which was not invited?

Or did Ramaphosa diss Biden because he is annoyed at the US — and other Western countries — for imposing a ban on South African visitors to stem the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus?

Ramaphosa’s harsh criticism of these countries on the West African tour which he completed this week certainly suggests deep anger.

As Breitbart News reported, Ramaphosa raged against the travel ban last month, saying the U.S. should help developing countries instead of banning international travel, which will hurt South Africa’s tourism-heavy economy in particular.

In January 2020, Biden called then-President Donald Trump’s travel ban on China “hysterical xenophobia.” Some critics now say the same about Biden’s ban on South Africa and neighboring countries.

President Biden took office earlier this year declaring that “diplomacy is back,” and promising that his administration would begin “working with our allies and partners, renewing our role in international institutions, and reclaiming our credibility and moral authority, much of which has been lost.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.