G20 summit: South Africa deceives the Trump administration

Protests from Washington

South Africa deceived the Trump administration with the G20 declaration

Disputes between America and South Africa continue. At the G20 Summit, Cyril Ramaphosa couldn’t avoid his speech against Washington

The US government accused South Africa of obstructing the handover of the G20 presidency. The background is a statement regarding the climate crisis. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed through their publication “despite consistent and firm objections from the United States,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said on Saturday.

The declaration at the G20 summit in Johannesburg was made possible thanks to a protocol trick. Formally, this is not a G20 declaration, but rather a statement adopted as a “Declaration of Heads of State and Government”.

The statement was written in language that would not be possible if the Trump administration were involved. This highlights the challenges posed by climate change and the need to adapt better. The non-binding declaration also mentions ambitious goals such as expanding renewable energy and points to poor countries’ huge debt burdens. In the past, Trump has prevented climate change from being mentioned in final documents at multilateral meetings.

The US government has warned against making such statements in his absence. A White House official called the move “outrageous.” The United States is scheduled to take over the leadership of the G20 in 2026. According to information from German government circles, they then want to reduce the scale of dialogue significantly. In the statement, the governments present stressed that they wanted to continue working with America despite the boycott.

But that’s not the only point of contention. South Africa did not want to symbolically hand over the annual chairmanship of the G20 to the United States on Sunday. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said this to journalists during the G20 summit of leading industrialized and developing countries. The office of president is usually handed over ceremonially at the end of a meeting from the current host country to the next chairing country – the United States.

But the administration under US President Donald Trump boycotted the first G20 summit in Africa. Trump complained of discrimination against South Africa’s white minority, particularly the Afrikaner group, who are descendants of Dutch settlers. South Africa rejected the allegations as baseless. Experts also view this as unjustified.