diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -10,6 +10,22 @@
 
 All ports committers are allowed to commit to this file.
 
+20240917:
+AUTHOR: vishwin@FreeBSD.org
+
+  devel/py-setuptools has been removed as a RUN_DEPENDS for
+  USE_PYTHON=distutils ports, except for Python 2 packages.
+
+  It is now disallowed to specify devel/py-setuptools as a RUN_DEPENDS
+  as upstream only support it as a build backend for Python packages.
+  The only exceptions are helper ports of PEP-517 build backends
+  that use devel/py-setuptools-scm to derive versions from source
+  code management systems (git, mercurial, etc). Other ports shall
+  not specify these as RUN_DEPENDS.
+
+  Please file PRs for ports relying on setuptools functionality at
+  runtime not related to Python package management and CC python@.
+
 20240408:
 AUTHOR: flo@FreeBSD.org
 
diff --git a/Mk/Uses/python.mk b/Mk/Uses/python.mk
--- a/Mk/Uses/python.mk
+++ b/Mk/Uses/python.mk
@@ -675,7 +675,6 @@
 RUN_DEPENDS+=		${PYTHON_PKGNAMEPREFIX}setuptools44>0:devel/py-setuptools44@${PY_FLAVOR}
 .    else
 BUILD_DEPENDS+=		${PYTHON_PKGNAMEPREFIX}setuptools>=63.1.0:devel/py-setuptools@${PY_FLAVOR}
-RUN_DEPENDS+=		${PYTHON_PKGNAMEPREFIX}setuptools>=63.1.0:devel/py-setuptools@${PY_FLAVOR}
 .    endif
 .  endif