What else is possible without the USA?

Meeting in South Africa

G20 summit on the brink: What else is possible without the USA?

The G20 has never been so small: Trump, Xi and Putin, the three most important heads of state, have canceled. The USA wants to withdraw completely from the summit deliberations. What’s the point of all this then?

The G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, is expected to take place largely without the economically and militarily strongest member state. The USA under President Donald Trump will not take part in the substantive discussions of the leading industrialized and emerging countries on Saturday and Sunday at the weekend, as a US government official in Washington confirmed to the German Press Agency. A novelty in the history of the G20 summit, which began in 2008 with the first meeting in Washington.

According to the information, the plan is to send a US representative to hand over the annually changing G20 chairmanship from South Africa to the USA. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said at a news conference in Johannesburg that discussions were still ongoing about US participation. “We have received a communication from the United States, which we are still discussing with them.” After that, the US “changed its mind about participating in the summit in some form.”

What is certain, however, is that neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance are traveling to South Africa. A White House spokeswoman described a South African media report that the United States wanted to abandon its boycott of the summit and still take part in the discussions as “fake news.”

Trump had threatened to boycott the summit weeks ago. Until the early afternoon, the German delegation assumed that the USA would not be represented in Johannesburg at all. Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil had already publicly regretted the decision during a visit to Singapore.

Two other high-profile figures, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian head of state Vladimir Putin, have announced that they will stay away from the meeting. But at least they send representatives. For Xi comes the number two in the state, Prime Minister Li Qiang.

Putin downgraded the Russian presence even further and had the deputy head of the presidential administration, Maxim Oreshkin, represent him. In recent years, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been there.

In addition, according to information from German government circles, Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Mexico will not be represented at executive level. Of the 19 heads of state and government who are members of the G20, only 13 will come.

Trump had initially planned to send Vice President Vance before bringing up the total boycott. The reason is Trump’s allegations against the South African government that white farmers are being persecuted and killed and their land is being confiscated. Without citing any evidence, he wrote on the Truth Social platform two weeks ago: “As long as these human rights violations continue, no representative of the US government will participate.” Trump called it a disgrace that the G20 summit is taking place in South Africa.