G20 South Africa
The G20 Leader’s Summit in Johannesburg opened with the final Leader’s Declaration. This was a break from the traditional approach of releasing the Declaration at the conclusion of the Leaders’ Summit. Difficult and tense relations between South Africa and the Trump administration undermined consensus and cooperation over the priorities under the host’s banner of ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability’ throughout Pretoria’s Presidency of the G20.
This resulted in the US announcing it would not be attending the Leader’s Summit in Johannesburg. South Africa wanted to avoid a Chair’s Statement at the end of the Summit, which is typically the case in the absence of a consensus of the G20 agenda, and is seen as a weaker outcome for a summit gathering. Instead, South Africa took the US’s absence as an opportunity to forge a consensus earlier in the Summit to prevent potential objections from the US, and from Argentina, who have been a close ally to the US under President Javier Milei’s administration.
The final Declaration emphasized sustainable development and equitable global governance, particularly as it relates to financing and partnerships. This was keeping in line with the Summit’s overall theme of Solidarity, Sustainability, and Equality. Hard work was done to ensure the Summit contained all these themes, and while it was more successful in making gains on sustainability and equality, solidarity was more hard won. This was not only because of the US.
The G20 Summit took place during significant global factionalism that affected collective action at the highest level between states. It is increasingly difficult to achieve consensus on common priorities and to commit to addressing them through multilateralism. This has affected cooperation between like-minded groups, such as the G7, or forums addressing common issues affecting all countries, as indicated by the recent COP30 on climate change. Countries reiterated the importance of multilateralism at the UN General Assembly in September 2025, but multilateralism was once again put to the test as the tensions persisted between G20 member states building up to, and within, negotiations around the final declaration.
But the US’s apparent late stage attempt to rejoin G20 talks suggests that even the strongest critics find it difficult to dismiss multilateral interaction. According to President Ramaphosa, Pretoria had received a notice from the US about participating ‘in one shape, or another in the Summit’. However, the US responded by denying that they would participate in the official talks at South Africa, and were mainly concerned with the US’s role in taking over the Presidency, The US opted to send their chargé d’affaires for the symbolic handover, but South Africa rejected handing over the G20 Presidency to a junior official. Ramaphosa announced instead that the handover would take place between equivalent diplomats in the week following the Leaders’ Summit.
All eyes were on the US’s boycott, but some commentators have noted that it was not only the US leader that was absent. China played a far less active role in the South Africa G20, even though it continues to participate in its processes. With President Xi scaling back his international travel, China’s representative, Premier Li Qiang, attended in President Xi’s place, spelling a more muted engagement by Beijing. Similarly, the absence of Russian President, Vladimir Putin, who faces an arrest warrant under the International Criminal Court for the war in Ukraine, meant that Russia was represented by deputy chief of staff of the presidential office, Maxim Oreshkin. That the hosts forged a consensus without the US and muted engagement from China has prompted observers to suggest that the G20 in South Africa presents an example of what multilateralism looks like without the major powers. In this case, it was largely business as usual. South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Raymond Lamola, emphasized this point by stating that ‘The G20 should send a clear message that the world can move on with or without the US’. Further absentees from the Leader’s Summit included Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinbu, and Argentina’s President, Javier Milei. Leaders of Saudi Arabia and Turkey also did not attend. Unlike the US, all these states sent senior representatives in their place.
South African Agenda
Inequality and poverty and development
The summit in Johannesburg put inequality on the global agenda, some commentators argued. At the conclusion of the COP30 Summit in Belém, Brazil, and ahead of the Johannesburg Summit, President’s Ramaphosa of South Africa, Lula da Silva of Brazil, and Pedro Sanchez of Spain issued a joint statement calling for ‘a new multilateralism which puts people’s needs at the centre of the international agenda’.
South Africa later launched a task force – the Extraordinary Committee of Independent Experts – to tackle global inequality. The task force delivered a report ahead of the Leader’s Summit that proposed an international panel to tackle inequality, similar to the IPCC. It also stressed reforms in international financial institutions, and efforts to reduce the cost of borrowing money.
South Africa proposed a Task Force on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialisation, Employment and Reduced Inequality with the aim of promoting sustainable growth to create jobs and reduce inequality. The Task Force would produce principles and policies for inclusive economic growth and employment creation. The outcomes of this Task Force included: the G20 Principles for Inclusive Economic Growth, Employment and Reduced Inequality and the G20 High-Level Principles on Sustainable Industrial Policy for Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialisation, Jobs and Equality. These outcomes were mentioned in the Leader’s Declaration, but not elaborated on further.
Another initiative under South Africa’s agenda was the Task Force on AI, Data Governance and Innovation for Sustainable Development. The Task Force was dedicated to developing ‘risk-based and human-centric, development-oriented, innovation-friendly AI policy and governance approaches that are consistent with human rights and applicable legal frameworks on security, privacy and protection of personal data, and intellectual property rights, whilst also encouraging multistakeholder participation’. To this end, South Africa held a High-Level Workshop on Data Governance and AI, and UNESCO released a Data Governance Toolkit to strength data governance in line with the G20. The main outcomes from this Task Force were to further the international conversations around governance of AI and data to mitigate risks and increase its developmental potentials.
Food security was a major priority in South Africa’s agenda. It launched a Food Security Taskforce that built on Brazil’s Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty initiative that was launched in the 2024 G20 Summit. The Task Force commissioned three studies focusing on the structural drivers of food insecurity and policy responses. The Taskforce concluded with the G20 Agricultural Ministers adopting a Food Security Task Force Declaration, infused with the principle of Ubuntu (‘I am because you are’). This Declaration proposed tackling market volatility and persistent food inflation as key areas to address food insecurity and inequality. South Africa will continue to advocate for the goals laid out in the Declaration at international fora such as the WTO. Some commentators have argued that South Africa’s proposal do not go far enough to address the structural drivers of hunger, and that local voices have been sidelined, therefore it remains to be seen how effective the Declaration will be.
Climate Change
The final declaration recognised the urgency of climate change and maintained the G20’s commitment to intensifying efforts to achieve net zero GHG emissions and climate neutrality commitments. It called for climate financing for developed countries, and reiterated the commitment to the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. President Ramaphosa saw the inclusion of climate financing in the Declaration as a win for South Africa. The US under the Trump administration has been resistant to commitments to climate change, and US officials stated that they would oppose any mentions of it in the final declaration.
Peace and Security
G20 Member States held side meetings to discuss the war in Ukraine, particularly Trump’s then recently leaked peace plan. The US has been pressuring Ukraine to accept the plan, which includes clauses that Kyiv has previously rejected. European states are concerned with how the plan appears to favour Russia and would effectively grant it favours for invading another country. The EU remains committed to ending the war, and used the side meetings at the G20 to discuss how to ‘strengthen’ Trump’s plan for the next phase of negotiations. The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, stated that the EU’s position is that the terms of agreement are ultimately for Ukraine to decide. World leaders are expected to gather in Geneva in the weeks following the G20 to continue discussions on the peace plan.
Middle Power Diplomacy
The last three G20 Summits demonstrated the growing influence of middle and emerging powers in shaping the global agenda, but it remains to be seen whether the traditional major powers are listening to their voices. The US has been against including climate change as part of the global agenda. Its reaction to the issues outlined in the final declaration was to accuse South Africa of weaponizing its position as the Presidency to undermine the founding principles of the G20 – that being unanimous consensus – to push through the final document. However, the commitments of the Member States suggested that they are supportive of the G20. Before the Johannesburg Summit, EU Commission President, Ursula von Leyden, expressed the EU’s commitment to multilateralism and free trade, and affirmed the G20 as a premier global forum to find common solutions for common challenges related to rules-based trade, climate change, changing technology, and food and energy resilience. France, the UK and the EU concluded a deal with South Africa to support the extraction and beneficiation of minerals – the processing of raw minerals into higher-value products – to boost economic growth, Analysts have also noted that the US’s absence was conducive to forming a consensus between the present Members, and enabled middle powers to push for the reforms they want.
Other leaders, such as French President, Emmanuel Macron, were more critical of the G20. Commenting on the fact that Trump’s Ukraine peace plan was a unilateral proposal, President Macron highlighted how countries in the G20 were struggling to find consensus. Macron stressed that, ‘the G20 is at risk if we do not collectively re-engage around a few priorities…We must absolutely demonstrate that we have concrete actions to re-engage this forum and provide responses for our economies collectively around this table.”
Foreign Minister Lamola reiterated that, with such a large grouping of countries, consensus will always be difficult, but that there is an emerging consensus among Member States that are present. The consensus that does emerge from the G20 will be a statement from South Africa, as the hosts, that ‘[the G20] can move on without the US’.
US G20 Presidency
On the one hand, the conclusion of a Declaration in the absence of the US is considered a win for multilateralism as a forum to consolidate shared norms as they relate to global priorities. On the other hand, following through and translating these norms/ambitions into concrete outcomes is still an open question if one of the world’s biggest powers is not involved. The latter raises the concern of the US disregarding any consensus that was made under the South African Presidency and the progress that was achieved at the Summit. While every new Presidency under the G20 tends to mould the next cycle’s agenda in line with its own national priorities, there still is still a nod to the work conducted by its predecessors.
With the US taking over the next G20 cycle, this could halt that progress made. The US claimed that it would restore the ‘legitimacy’ of the group under its Presidency. For the US, this looks to be a narrowing of the G20’s focus to the Leader’s Summit and the finance track. This also could include the removal of the other working groups and other minister’s meetings under the cycle of the US Presidency. Washington has stated that this is ‘going back to basics’. The key pillars are expected to be economic growth, deregulation and energy abundance. This reorientation will also be reflected in who is invited to the Leader’s Summit, which will include the international financial institutions but is expected to exclude some UN bodies, according to sources from Washington. This would not necessarily amount to a complete change of the G20’s orientation, given that economic growth is one of its priorities, but it does hollow out some of the more robust approaches the previous three Presidencies, led by the Global South middle powers, have taken.
The Coming US G20 Leaders’ Summit
President Trump has announced that South Africa will not be invited to G20 events under the US Presidency next year. However, South Africa is a founding member of the G20 and, given its role as the previous holder of the Presidency, forms part of the Troika that constitutes the organizing committee for the upcoming Summit in 2026.
It appears that the US will in fact not utilize the Troika for the US summit year given that South Africa is part of the Troika. However, the Troika well might be reinstated once the US’s successor, the United Kingdom, takes over the Presidency for the 2027 cycle. As it stands, the G20 Summit is a cautious win for multilateralism.