The United States used Thursday’s Group of 20 foreign ministers’ meeting to attack the forum, accusing it of drifting from its economic mission towards social issues and dashing South Africa’s hopes that US President Donald Trump would attend its annual summit in November.
Rather than embracing the Johannesburg gathering – the first on African soil since the G20’s founding in 1999 – Washington dismissed it as a distraction, saying its focus is on 2026, when it will host the forum and drive it “back to basics”.
Allison Hooker, under secretary of state for political affairs, stood in for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who pointedly skipped the gathering on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Hooker delivered one of the sharpest US critiques of the group in years, accusing the G20, which also includes China and India, of losing its way by focusing on diversity and gender initiatives rather than structural economic reform, the same areas the Trump administration has rolled back domestically.
“Unfortunately, in recent years, the G20 has drifted too often. Its agenda has expanded well beyond its core remit,” she said, accusing the forum of becoming “entangled in debates over every political wedge issue of the day”, from “gender-responsive budgeting” to “nation-building” and “pandemic surveillance”.
The US will not “spend hours debating out of touch social initiatives disconnected from growth and stability. Instead, we will concentrate on priorities that directly strengthen our economies and benefit our citizens”, Hooker declared.
Earlier this week, on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “I had hoped that your president would attend. He kept on enticing me with a promise that he will attend, but he doesn’t seem to be living up to it.”
The US-South Africa relations have been at their lowest in recent years, as Pretoria brought an ongoing case before the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza in December 2023.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, the US has firmly backed Israel and accused South Africa of anti-white policies, with Trump labelling it as “white genocide”.
About a month ago, Trump said he may skip the summit and send Vice-President J.D. Vance in his place since he “had a lot of problems with South Africa”. “They have some very bad policies,” he told reporters.
The Washington Post reported in May that the Trump administration had ordered federal agencies to stop engaging with preparations for the G20 summit this year.
Instead, the US appeared more focused on the summit next year. For the year starting December 1, the US will take over the G20 presidency.
The White House announced earlier this month that the summit will take place at Trump’s golf course and spa in Doral, Florida, noting that Trump Doral will host the event “at cost and will receive no profit from either the State Department or a foreign government”.
On Thursday, Hooker said the US would cut back the G20’s bloated network of working groups and steer it towards an accomplishment-oriented approach rather than “empty words.”
“We will reduce the proliferation of working groups, cut back on bureaucratic excess and sharpen our lines of effort,” she added.
Calling on the members to focus on “outcomes”, she reminded them that the G20 was created to build resilience and stability in the global economy, “not to produce lofty declarations that sit on a shelf”.
Despite the talk of bringing back the focus on the economy, the US has remained silent on the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a 33-country pact that allows them to sell their goods in the US market.
The deal, which was first signed in 2002, is expiring next week. South Africa, among the worst hit by Trump’s tariffs, is a member of AGOA. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
