Nov. 23 (UPI) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa brought the G20 summit in Johannesburg to a close Saturday, and rejected a proposal by the United States for him to pass control for next year’s meeting in Florida to a junior U.S. embassy official.
Ramaphosa depicted the two-day summit as a win for multilateralism but said it was marred by a U.S. boycott. The United States has repeatedly accused South Africa, without proof, of discriminating against white-minority Afrikaners
“We’ve met in the face of significant challenges and demonstrated our ability to come together, even in times of great difficulty, to pursue a better world,” Ramaphosa said in his closing remarks.
As he closed the conference, Ramaphosa said “We shall see each other again next year” in the United States. It was his only mention of the United States during the summit.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly accused Ramaphosa of “refusing to facilitate a smooth transition of the G20 presidency.”
“This, coupled with South Africa’s push to issue a G20 leaders’ declaration, despite consistent and robust U.S. objections, underscored the fact that they have weaponized their G20 presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles,” Kelly said.
As part of the conference Saturday, the G20 declared a need to address climate change and achieve “gender equality” among participating countries.
While not making any specific reference to President Donald Trump and the United States during the G20 summit, references were made to his administration’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement on the first day of his second term and its undoing of policies aimed at eliminating sexism, racism and homophobia.
South Africa offered to provide an equivalent junior diplomat to hand over the G20 presidency to the United States at his foreign ministry. Country officials said it would breach protocol for Ramaphosa to pass the torch to a U.S. acting ambassador.
China, Russia and Mexico were also no-shows at the Johannesburg G20.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has routinely delegated attendance at such events to Chinese Premier Li Qiang. Russian President Vladimir Putin is wanted by the international court and Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum was not in attendance.
The 2026 G20 summit is scheduled to be held at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, which is owned by the Trump Organization.
