Johannesburg (AFP) – South Africa said Thursday it was prepared to wait out next year’s G20 after being barred by the United States and did not expect other countries to lobby for its inclusion. The United States this month took over the year-long presidency of the group of leading economies after largely boycotting South Africa’s tenure, including the November summit, in an escalation of its attacks on Pretoria.
President Donald Trump said on social media late November that South Africa would not be invited to the summit in Miami, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeated in comments Wednesday. “We are yet to receive it in writing and we will deal with that when it comes,” President Cyril Ramaphosa told reporters on Thursday. South Africa was “fully fledged member of the G20” and its presidency had been internationally described as successful, he said.
Presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya said earlier that South Africa was prepared to sit out the forum’s 2026 series and resume participation when the G20 is handed to Britain in a year’s time. “About this time next year, the UK will be taking over the G20 Presidency,” Magwenya said on social media. “We will be able to engage meaningfully and substantively over what really matters to the rest of the world. For now, we will take a commercial break until we resume normal programming,” he said.
– ‘Spirit of G20’ –
The Johannesburg summit, the first in Africa, was attended by a host of world leaders, including from countries not in the G20, but boycotted by Trump. Rubio said in a newsletter that South Africa’s G20 was an exercise in “radical agendas” that ignored US objections. The “United States will not be extending an invitation to the South African government to participate in the G20 during our presidency,” he said.
Ramaphosa said South Africa would not attempt to mobilise a boycott of the US G20 to object to its exclusion. “Every country must take its own decisions,” he said. South Africa would however want countries to “register their displeasure with the US in defence of multilateralism and the spirit and purpose of the G20,” his spokesman said in an interview with the Sunday Times Wednesday.
The G20 group of nations includes the world’s top economies as well as the European Union and the African Union regional blocs. It accounts for 85 percent of the world’s GDP and two-thirds of its population. The Trump administration has lashed out at South Africa over a range of policies, expelling its ambassador in March and imposing 30 percent trade tariffs, which Pretoria is still seeking to overturn.
© 2024 AFP
