G20 summit adopts declaration despite US boycott
The group of 20 leaders adopted a statement addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges over objections from the United States, prompting the White House to accuse South Africa of arming the group’s leadership this year.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesman told reporters that the declaration, prepared without US input, “cannot be renegotiated”, reflecting tensions between Pretoria and US President Donald Trump’s administration, which boycotted the event.
“We have been working all year on this adoption and this past week has been extremely busy,” spokesman Vincent Magwenya said.
Ramaphosa, who is hosting the Group of 20 Leaders meeting in Johannesburg this weekend, has previously said there was “overwhelming consensus” on a summit declaration.
G20 envoys prepared a draft leadership statement on Friday and hours later the White House said Ramaphosa had “refused to facilitate a smooth transition of the G20 presidency” after initially saying he would pass the gavel to an ’empty chair’.
“This, coupled with South Africa’s pressure to issue the G20 Leaders’ Declaration despite consistent and strong objections from the United States, underscores the fact that they are weaponizing the G20 presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said.
Trump looks forward to “legitimising” the group when he assumes the US presidency next year.
Argentina, whose far-right President Javier Milei is a close ally of Trump, withdrew from the talks at the last minute, just before envoys agreed to accept the draft text, South African officials said.
Speaking at the summit, Argentine foreign minister Pablo Quirno said, “Although Argentina cannot ratify the declaration… it remains fully committed to the spirit of cooperation that has defined the G20 since its establishment.” he said.
In the statement, Quirno said Argentina was concerned about how geopolitical issues were referred to in the document.
“It deals with the long-running conflict, particularly in the Middle East, in a way that fails to capture its full complexity,” he said.
“The document mentions the conflict once and states that members agree to work for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
G20 envoys, which bring together the world’s leading economies, drafted a leaders’ declaration on Friday without the participation of the United States, four sources close to the matter said.
“It is a long-standing G20 tradition to publish only consensus-based outputs, and it is a shame that the South African government is now seeking to depart from this standard practice,” a senior Trump administration official said on Friday.
The statement used the kind of language the US administration has long disliked: emphasizing the severity of climate change and the need to better adapt to it, touting ambitious targets to increase renewable energy, and highlighting the punishing levels of debt default suffered by poor countries.
The mention of climate change was a snub at Trump, who doubts the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities. US officials had stated that they would oppose any reference to this in the declaration.
In his opening remarks to the summit, Ramaphosa said: “We must allow nothing to diminish the value, dignity and impact of Africa’s first G20 presidency.”
His bold tone was a striking contrast to his subdued manners during his visit to the White House in May; here he endured Trump repeating a false claim that there was a genocide of white farmers in South Africa and brushed aside Ramaphosa’s efforts to correct the facts.
Trump said U.S. officials would not attend the summit because of widely discredited allegations that the host country’s Black majority government was oppressing the white minority.
The US president also rejected the host country’s agenda to promote solidarity and help developing countries adapt to disasters, transition to clean energy and reduce excessive debt costs.
The South African presidency reiterated on Saturday that it had rejected a US offer to send a US chargé d’affaires to hand over the G20.
“The President will not hand over the G20 presidency to a junior embassy official. This is an unacceptable breach of protocol,” Magwenya said. he said.
Lamola later said he would appoint a diplomat of the same rank as chargé d’affaires to hand over South Africa’s G20 presidency to the foreign relations department.
