President Cyril Ramaphosa has assurance from US President Donald Trump that he will consider attending the G20 leaders’ summit later this year.

Ramaphosa held a media briefing with the South African press following a tense visit to the White House, which he managed to de-escalate as Trump accused the South African government of persecuting and taking land from white South Africans.

Despite contentious debate and tensions stoked by false claims of genocide during the televised meeting between the two heads of state, Ramaphosa said the topic did not feature in the closed-door meeting, which included lunch.

Instead, the two leaders engaged on regional conflicts in Africa and Eastern Europe as well as trade relations. However, the two leaders did not touch on Israel and South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice.

“So I was rather pleased that there's a firm agreement and undertaking to continue engaging. That was one of the key outcomes that we had wanted.

"Our objective in coming here was to reset relations between the two countries and to reposition our relations, which had become contaminated by some of the issues that had been raised during the engagement, or what many people thought was also contaminating relations, for instance, the ICJ case and Ukraine, Russia and all that,” Ramaphosa said.

He said while Trump raised concerns about white South Africans, “in the discussions over lunch, we didn’t dwell on that issue”.

He said Trump asked how the US could assist South Africa. The delegation pointed to more investments from the US.

He said team South Africa told the Trump delegates they required a more positive disposition from the US, which would unlock investment.

“We want to keep the jobs that we have, that have been created by US companies. And we want more and more US companies to come and invest,” he said.

Ramaphosa said part of the talks included the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act, which has been nullified by Trump’s punitive tariffs.

His biggest takeaway was Trump’s commitment to consider attending the G20 summit, telling journalists that he stressed to the US president that it would be important to the success of the summit.

“And I said, he needs to be there. I don't want to hand over the presidency of the G20 to an empty chair, I want to hand it over to him sitting in that chair in November … The G20 would be more impactful on global matters with the participation of the largest economy in the world.

“So my takeaway is that G20 participation by the US is going to be happening,” he said.

He said the South African government had managed to start resetting their relations with the US government and that ministers would begin to engage with one another over trade relations.