G20

South Africa secured a declaration from the rest of the G20, despite United States objections.

Washington boycotted the meeting over President Donald Trump’s accusations that South Africa persecutes its white minority, a claim widely rejected.

The document calls for more funding for renewable energy, fairer critical mineral supply chains and debt relief for poorer nations.

The first G20 summit on African soil broke with tradition by releasing the document at the start.

And there was no ceremonial handover between the outgoing South African and incoming American chairs.

Also, can Britain’s Labour government satisfy both businesses and households?

Plus, the weight-loss drug booming industry.

Nov. 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has withdrawn South Africa’s invitation to next year’s G20 summit in Miami, Fla., escalating a row with Johannesburg.

Trump made the announcement Wednesday on his Truth Social platform as this year’s summit of the wealthy nations, held in South Africa, came to an end without the United States participating.

“South Africa has demonstrated to the World they are not a country worthy of Membership anywhere, and we are going to stop all payments and subsidies to them, effective immediately,” the American leader said in the statement.

Trump has escalated his criticisms against South Africa since returning to the White House.

In February, he threatened to cut U.S. funding to the African nation over a new law allowing authorities to expropriate land in the public interest as part of efforts to redress racial inequalities rooted in apartheid.

Though the law states that property cannot be expropriated arbitrarily and allows expropriation without compensation only in limited cases, Trump accused South Africa of “confiscating land” in violation of the human rights of White South Africans.

Trump has since escalated his rhetoric, alleging that White South Africans face genocide — a claim rejected by South African officials and regional leaders and not supported by available evidence.

After Trump announced that the United States wouldn’t be attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg due to “Afrikaners … being killed and slaughtered and their land and farms … being illegally confiscated,” the African National Congress described Trump’s allegations as “part of a long and disgraceful pattern of imperial arrogance and disinformation.”

“These statements are not borne of ignorance, they are deliberate attempts to distort the reality of South Africa’s democracy and to mobilize racial fear for political gain in the United States,” the African National Congress, the ruling political party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, said Nov. 8 in a statement.

“Donald Trump’s continued siding with racist and right-wing movements across the world is well-documented and consistent with his dangerous rhetoric. From defending White supremacists at Charlottesville to vilifying African nations as ‘expletive countries,’ his record speaks of a man driven by prejudice, not principle.”

Trump on Tuesday reiterated his allegations that Afrikaners were being killed and their land being stolen from them, while stating that at the conclusion of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, the South African delegation “refused” to hand over the G20 presidency to a senior U.S. Embassy official who attended the closing ceremony.

In response, the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that since the United States did not participate in the summit, it handed over the instruments of the G20 presidency to a U.S. Embassy official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation.

The office added that it will continue to participate as a full, active and founding member of the G20.

“It is regrettable that despite the efforts and numerous attempts by President Ramaphosa and his administration to reset the diplomatic relationship with the U.S., President Trump continues to apply punitive measures against South Africa based on misinformation and distortions about our country,” his office said in a statement.

Heads of state from the world’s most powerful countries gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the weekend for a summit that had been billed, under South Africa’s G20 presidency, as a turning point for addressing debt distress across the Global South.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had consistently framed the issue as central to his agenda, arguing that spiralling repayment costs have left governments, particularly in Africa, with little room to fund essential services like healthcare and education.

But despite repeated pledges – including in the leaders’ summit declaration to “strengthen the implementation of the G20 Common Framework” – South Africa did not deliver any new proposals for easing fiscal constraints in indebted nations.

Hopes that world leaders would use the G20 summit to tackle sovereign debt distress were further dashed when United States President Donald Trump, at odds with South Africa over domestic policies, skipped the meeting altogether amid Washington’s retreat from multilateralism.

The summit also marked the close of a brief period of Global South leadership in the G20, following presidencies held by Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, and Brazil in 2024. The US is set to assume the G20 presidency on December 1.

Debt ‘vulnerabilities’

The G20 – which consists of 19 advanced and emerging economies, the European Union and the African Union – represents 85 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and roughly two-thirds of the world’s population.

In October, G20 finance ministers and central bank chiefs met in Washington and agreed to a consensus statement on debt.

“We recognise that a high level of debt is one of the obstacles to inclusive growth in many developing economies, which limits their ability to invest in infrastructure, disaster resilience, healthcare, education and other development needs,” the statement said.

It also pledged to “reaffirm our commitment to support efforts by low- and middle-income countries to address debt vulnerabilities in an effective, comprehensive and systematic manner”.

The communique committed to improving the much-criticised Common Framework, a mechanism launched by the G20 five years ago to accelerate and simplify debt restructuring – when countries have to reprofile debts they can no longer afford to repay.

Elsewhere, the statement advocated for greater transparency around debt reporting and more lending from regional development banks.

Record-high debt levels

According to the Institute of International Finance, a banking industry association, total debt in developing countries rose to a record high of $109 trillion by mid-2025.

In recent years, COVID-19, climate shocks and rising food prices have forced many poor countries to rely on debt to stabilise their economies, crowding out other investments. For instance, the United Nations recently calculated that more than 40 percent of African governments spend more on servicing debt than they do on healthcare.

Africa also faces high borrowing costs. In 2023, bond yields – the interest on government debt – averaged 6.8 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 9.8 percent in Africa.

Meanwhile, Africa collectively needs $143bn every year in climate finance to meet its Paris Agreement goals. In 2022, it received approximately $44bn.

At the same time, countries on the continent spent almost $90bn servicing external debt in 2024.

No progress

Shortly before the release of the G20’s final communique, 165 charities condemned the group’s slow progress on debt sustainability and urged President Ramaphosa to implement reforms before transferring the G20 presidency over to the US in December.

“While this year’s G20 has been put forward as an ‘African G20’, there is no evidence that any progress has been made on the debt crisis facing Africa and many other countries worldwide during the South African presidency,” the group said in a letter.

The missive called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to sell its gold reserves and set up a debt relief fund for distressed governments. It also backed the creation of a ‘borrowers club’ to facilitate cooperation among low-income countries.

The call for a unified debtor body reflects growing frustration with existing frameworks, notably the Paris Club, in which mostly Western governments, but not China, have exerted undue influence over the repayment policies of debtor nations.

In May 2020, the G20 launched a multibillion-dollar repayment pause to help poor countries cope with the COVID‑19 crisis. Known as the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, the programme is continuing to provide relief to some participating countries.

The launch of the Common Framework, soon afterwards, was designed to coordinate debt relief among all creditors. At the time, the initiative was hailed as a breakthrough, bringing together the Paris Club, China and private creditors to help prevent a full-blown debt crisis in developing countries.

But coordinating equal treatment, including government lenders, commercial banks, and bondholders, has made the process slow and prone to setbacks.

To date, none of the countries that joined the Common Framework – Ethiopia, Zambia, Ghana, and Chad – have completed their debt restructuring deals.

And even then, the programme has relieved just 7 percent of the debt costs for the four participating nations, according to ONE Campaign, an advocacy group.

‘Outmanoeuvred’

In March, South Africa convened an expert panel – headed by a former finance minister and a former Kenyan central banker – to explore how to assist heavily indebted low-income countries, particularly in Africa.

In a report released earlier this month, the panel echoed many of the ideas put forward by the 165 charities that wrote to Ramaphosa in October, calling for measures like an IMF-backed special debt fund and the formation of a debtors’ club.

But the experts’ proposals “weren’t even acknowledged at the leaders’ summit”, Kevin Gallagher, director of Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center, told Al Jazeera. He said that the G20 presidency “failed to address the scale of the global debt problem”.

“Ultimately,” Gallagher added, “South Africa was outmanoeuvred by larger, more economically important members of the G20 who saw little benefit to themselves in reforming the international financial architecture on debt.”

‘Double whammy’ of debt

In the early 2000s, the IMF, World Bank and some Paris Club creditors cancelled more than $75bn of debt – roughly 40 percent of external obligations – under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.

Since then, however, many developing countries have slipped back into the red. After the 2008 financial crisis, private creditors poured money into low-income economies, steadily replacing the cheaper loans once offered by institutions like the World Bank.

Between 2020 and 2025, almost 40 percent of external public debt repayments from lower-income countries went to commercial lenders. Just one-third went to multilateral institutions, according to Debt Justice, a United Kingdom-based charity.

China has also emerged as the world’s largest single creditor, especially in the Global South, committing more than $472bn through its policy banks – such as the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank – between 2008 and 2024.

“On top of debt becoming more expensive over the past 10 or 15 years, there is now a wider universe of lenders that developing countries have turned to,” says Iolanda Fresnillo, a policy and advocacy manager at Eurodad, a civil society organisation.

“It’s been a double whammy. Debt is now costlier and harder to resolve,” she said, noting the difficulty of coordinating creditors in a restructuring. Protracted debt crises slow growth by squeezing public investment.

Overcoming these hurdles is made harder when creditors pursue competing commercial interests. Fresnillo says an independent debt-restructuring body, designed to shorten negotiation times and limit economic costs, could help.

In September, the head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Rebeca Grynspan, said, “There is no permanent institution or system that is there all the time dealing with debt restructuring … maybe we can create new momentum.”

However, talk of an international sovereign debt restructuring mechanism isn’t new. The IMF spearheaded a push for a neutral body – which would be akin to a US bankruptcy court – in the late 1990s.

The Fund’s proposed restructuring mechanism faced swift pushback. Major creditor countries, particularly the US, opposed ceding power to an international body that could override its legal system and weaken protections for US investors.

Still, “the need for this type of international solution is obvious”, says Fresnillo. “Having a basic set of rules, as opposed to an ad hoc negotiation for every new debt crisis, should be a bare minimum.”

She added that “adopting a global standard on taxing transnational corporations could also guarantee a baseline of revenues for low-income countries. But with multilateral cooperation so weak right now, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

President Lee Jae Myung has warned risks of accidental clashes with North Korea, saying Seoul must continue to make efforts with patience to resume dialogue with Pyongyang to reduce such risks.

Lee gave the assessment on inter-Korean relations at a press conference aboard his flight from Johannesburg to Ankara on Sunday (local time), as part of his four-nation trip to Africa and the Middle East.

Inter-Korean relations have turned extremely hostile and confrontational, and North Korea is engaging in very extreme actions without even the most basic level of trust,” Lee told reporters. “We are in a very dangerous situation where accidental clashes could break out at any time.”

He renewed his call for dialogue after Seoul proposed military talks to clarify the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), aimed at preventing unintended clashes near the border. The proposal came amid repeated incidents of North Korean soldiers briefly crossing the MDL while clearing land or laying mines in the buffer zone.

Lee noted that the North has been installing triple layers of barbed wire along the MDL, raising the risk of warning-fire incidents amid differing views on the precise border line.

“With all communication channels severed, even if an accidental clash occurs, there is no way to resolve it,” he said.

To ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, Lee underscored the need to push for dialogue with Pyongyang even if it remains unresponsive.

While reaffirming unification with North Korea is South Korea’s ultimate goal, Lee said it must be approached from a long-term perspective.

“We have no intention of pursuing unification by absorption,” he said, emphasizing that discussions on unification should come only after dialogue resumes and peaceful coexistence is established.

Asked whether South Korea could consider curtailing its joint military drills with the United States to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table, Lee said it is premature to draw conclusions, calling the matter “the most sensitive” issue for North Korea.

He said that while a stable peace regime in which large-scale exercises are unnecessary would be desirable in the long term, decisions on drills should depend on evolving circumstances.

“If a stable peace regime is firmly established between the two Koreas, it would be desirable not to conduct the drills,” he said. “Depending on the situation, reducing or postponing the exercises could become either the result of building a peace regime or leverage to help create one. It is difficult to say at this moment which it will be.”

Pyongyang has long denounced the Seoul-Washington exercises as “war rehearsals,” while the allies claim they are defensive in nature.

On relations with China, Lee reiterated that South Korea should stably manage ties with its largest trading partner while advancing the alliance with the U.S. to a strategic comprehensive one encompassing the economy and technology.

“The basic principle of our diplomacy is the Korea-U.S. alliance, while stably managing relations with China,” he said. “The foundation of this approach is pragmatic diplomacy centered on national interests. I have clearly communicated this principle to both the U.S. and China.”

Regarding the diplomatic row between Beijing and Tokyo over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remarks on Taiwan, Lee called for a “cool-headed approach” guided by national interest.

He said he held separate talks with Takaichi and Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in South Africa to prevent misunderstandings or conflict.

“I have explained our position in the two meetings,” he said, adding that “there are no additional risk factors” in South Korea’s relations with the neighboring nations.

South Korea, China and Japan reportedly had consultations to arrange their first trilateral summit since May 2024. But the outlook for trilateral engagement remains cloudy amid a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing.

Lee said leaders he met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in South Africa and visits to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt showed strong interest in South Korea’s defense industry.

“In particular, they were interested in joint development, production, sales and exploring new markets,” he said.

He expressed optimism in clinching a major defense deal from the UAE following his summit with President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan last week.

Lee also said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi outlined plans to expand Cairo International Airport under an estimated cost of around 3-4 trillion won (US$2-2.7 billion), while expressing hope that Korean companies would join the project to overhaul and operate it.

In Johannesburg, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed establishing a cooperative framework in the shipbuilding industry involving South Korea, Japan and India, Lee added.

Ahead of his summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, Lee said he wants to highlight Korea’s advanced nuclear energy capability to promote the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO)’s bid to win a new nuclear plant project in Turkey.

In 2023, KEPCO submitted a preliminary bid to Turkey’s project to build its second nuclear power plant in Sinop on the Black Sea coast.

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When South Africa opens the 2025 G20 Summit on November 22nd in Cape Town, the meeting will not simply be another high-level diplomatic gathering. It will be a test of what global leadership looks like in an era defined by debt crises, climate shocks, and geopolitical fragmentation. It will also be a summit shaped as much by who is present as by who is absent.

For the first time since leaders began to regularly attend the G20, the United States is not expected to attend at the presidential level. That absence will hang heavily over a summit built around three themes that South Africa has placed at the core of its G20 hosting: solidarity, equality, and sustainability. This is not symbolic branding. These are principles that directly challenge the structure and priorities of the current international system and America’s decision not to participate will only magnify their political weight.

South Africa’s Vision for a More Equal Order

South Africa has been clear about what it wants this G20 to represent. The country’s diplomats have framed the summit as an opportunity to “rebalance global governance” and restore trust between advanced economies and the Global South. That begins with solidarity, not as a moral appeal but as a practical necessity in a world where the gaps in competition are tightening across virtually every sector.

South African officials have emphasized that the world is too interconnected, through supply chains, energy markets, debt exposures, and climate shocks, for any nation to pursue growth alone. Solidarity, in their framing, means shared responsibility for global risks and shared input into global rules.

Expect to see debt restructuring as a key component of the weekend. Dozens of low and middle-income countries are approaching insolvency. Many see the G20 as the only venue capable of compelling creditors, including China, Western banks, and the IMF to negotiate jointly. South Africa intends to push for more predictable mechanisms, faster timelines, and deeper reductions of overall debt.

The theme of equality is expected to be even more pointed. Pretoria has argued that the international financial system remains structurally biased. Voting power at the IMF does not reflect modern economic reality. Climate finance packages distribute risk upward and accountability downward. Supply chain standards reflect the priorities of wealthy states far more than those of producing states.

South Africa wants this summit to pressure advanced economies to move beyond incrementalism and to recognize developing nations as cooperators, not beneficiaries, of global economic design.

Sustainability as an Economic Imperative

As noted in the central theme of the summit, sustainability is the key talking point of the weekend. South Africa is expected to focus on climate adaptation financing, food security resilience, renewable infrastructure gaps, green industrialization, and the economic displacement climate change is already causing.

Pretoria’s message is blunt: sustainability is not the environmental chapter of the global economy, it is the global economy. The safeguards nations build today will determine whether their populations can withstand the shocks of the coming decade.

The Symbolism of America’s Absence

While the summit’s themes are forward-looking, the headlines thus far are dominated by one glaring issue; The United States is boycotting the event, and not sending a single delegate.

This absence is certainly meant to be received as a bold statement. In a moment when most of the global agenda is being rewritten around solidarity, shared burdens, debt relief, and climate vulnerability, the United States is choosing not to stand at the table.

Many delegations will read this as confirmation of what they already suspected: that the U.S. is prioritizing bilateral leverage and transactional deals over multilateral governance. In other words, America is choosing power over partnership.

That decision will have ripple effects. If Washington is not present to influence the language of solidarity or the scope of sustainability targets, other powers will be. The U.S. forfeits not only visibility, but the ability to shape norms that will define the next phase of global cooperation. The strongman tactic will prove less effective as the world continues to accelerate towards a multipolar world, as opposed to a unipolar order where D.C. stands above the rest.

China and India Eager to Fill the Vacuum

China is expected to enter the summit with a confident posture, despite Xi Jinping not attending. Beijing has spent the past several years positioning itself as the Global South’s premier development partner. A G20 centered around equality and solidarity aligns perfectly with China’s messaging: that it represents a more inclusive, less conditional model of global cooperation. This message will be even more prominent with an absentee America. To capitalize on the overall theme of moving away from Western dominated structures, it would be reasonable to assume that many lending systems denominated in the Yuan will be discussed on the sidelines.

India, meanwhile, will frame itself as the democratic partner of choice for developing economies. Expect New Delhi to emphasize supply chain diversification, digital equality, and climate-resilient infrastructure. India will also push for greater representation of Global South nations in multilateral institutions, a message that will resonate strongly in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Europe Attempts to Lead

European leaders will arrive prepared to engage deeply on sustainability and climate finance, but without Washington their influence will be limited. Europe cannot match America’s financial firepower nor China’s development machinery.

While Europeans tend to embrace the rhetoric of solidarity, they remain cautious about large-scale debt forgiveness, new climate financing mandates, and reforms that would dilute their institutional voting power. That tension prevents Europe from presenting itself as the natural successor to U.S. leadership, but rather an extension of it in the eyes of many developing nations.

A Summit That Signals a Changing Global Order

If South Africa succeeds in shaping the weekend around solidarity, equality, and sustainability, the summit could represent the most significant shift in G20 philosophy since its creation.

Tomorrow’s G20 will not be remembered for dramatic breakthroughs. It will be remembered for something subtler but more consequential; a turning point in global governance where the United States stepped back and the rest of the world showed it could step forward.

Africa’s first-ever Group of 20 (G20) summit – and the first boycotted by a prominent member – has wrapped up.

Host South Africa hailed it as a success, as a declaration was agreed covering a wide range of issues.

But what’s next for the G20?

Presenter: Imran Khan

Guests:

Thembisa Fakude – Director of Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid) in Johannesburg

Richard Weitz – Senior non-resident associate fellow at the NATO Defense College in Washington, DC

Omar Ashour – Professor of strategic studies and international security at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies

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.

Nov. 22 (UPI) — The South Africa-hosted G20 summit began Saturday with some member states weighing a proposed peace plan to end the Russian-Ukraine war.

The two-day event is being held in Johannesburg amid a U.S. boycott due to South Africa’s policies toward Afrikaners.

The 28-point plan would require Ukrainian leaders to concede territorial gains by Russia, which they previously rejected, and limit the size of their military, The New York Times reported.

The proposed plan would give Russia some parts of the eastern Donbas region and force Ukraine to forego any possibility of joining NATO, according to The Guardian.

President Donald Trump presented the peace plan to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this week and advised him to decide whether to accept or reject it by next week.

European leaders attending the G-20 conference held a side meeting to review the plan and generally agreed that it needs to be revised to gain their support.

The plan “includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace,” they said afterward in a joint statement.

“But it is a basis that will require additional work,” they said, adding: “Borders must not be changed by force.”

Representatives from Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the European Union signed the joint statement.

The peace plan is not a final offer, though, Trump said on Saturday.

While several participating nations weighed the peace proposal, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered the opening speech for the gathering of the world’s 20-largest economies, minus the United States.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded the summit being held in South Africa and said it’s time for the world’s leading economies support sustainable development.

“With Africa hosting the G-20 summit for the first time, now is the right moment for us to revisit our development parameters and focus on growth that is inclusive and sustainable,” Modi said in a post on X.

“India’s civilizational values, especially the principle of integral humanism, offers a way forward,” he added.

World leaders broke with tradition and quickly adopted a new declaration at the start of the G20 summit, despite pressure from the Trump administration to avoid a leaders’ declaration in the absence of an American delegation.

US President Donald Trump’s decision to snub the G20 summit in South Africa this year has handed an opportunity to China, as it seeks to expand its growing influence in the African continent and position itself as an alternative to the dangers of a unilateralist United States.

Washington said it would not attend the two-day summit set to kick off on Saturday over widely discredited claims that the host country, previously ruled by its white minority under an apartheid system until 1994, now mistreats white people.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa hit back at Trump’s claim that hosting the summit in Johannesburg was a “total disgrace”. “Boycott politics doesn’t work,” Ramaphosa said, adding that the US was “giving up the very important role that they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world”.

By Friday morning, Trump appeared to have backtracked on his stance somewhat, when speculation that Washington might send a US official to Johannesburg after all circulated.

Regardless, the spat comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping sends Premier Li Qiang to represent him on the world stage. China’s 72-year-old president has dialled back foreign visits, increasingly delegating his top emissary.

“The US is giving China an opportunity to expand its global influence,” Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University, told Al Jazeera. “With the absence of the US, China and EU countries will be the focus of the summit and other countries will look for leadership [from them].”

But observers say that while Trump’s absence will direct heightened attention to Beijing’s statements and behaviour, it does not spell the end of the US-led order altogether.

Jing Gu, a political economist at the United Kingdom-based Institute of Development Studies, said the US’s failure to attend “does not automatically make China the new leader, but it creates visible space for China to present itself as a more stable, reliable partner in governance”.

“It reinforces the perception that the US is stepping back from multilateralism and the shared management of global problems,” she said. “In that context, China can present itself as a more predictable, stable actor and emphasise continuity, support for open trade and engagement with the Global South.”

Expanding influence in the African continent

This year’s G20 will, for the first time, have an African chair and take place on the African continent. The African Union (AU) will also participate fully as a member.

South Africa, which holds the G20 presidency, is expected to push for consensus and action on priority issues for African countries, including debt relief, economic growth, climate change and transition to clean energy.

Zhu, who also serves as editor-in-chief of the academic journal, China and the World, said South Africa’s themes were a “natural fit” for China, Africa’s largest trading partner.

“China aims to become a leader in green energy, and there’s a lot of room for China and African countries to work on that,” he said.

The African continent, with its mineral wealth, booming population and fast-growing economies, offers huge potential for Chinese firms. Li, China’s premier, travelled to Zambia this week, marking the first visit to the country by a Chinese premier in 28 years. The copper-rich nation has Beijing as its largest official creditor for $5.7bn.

Eager to secure access to Zambia’s commodities and expand its exports from resource-rich East Africa, China signed a $1.4bn deal in September to rehabilitate the Tazara Railway, built in the 1970s and connecting Tanzania and Zambia, to improve rail-sea transportation in the region.

“The Chinese economy and African economy are complementary; they both benefit from trade,” Zhu said. The G20 “is a great platform for China to project its global influence and seek opportunities to work with other countries”, he added.

Africa’s growing demand for energy and China’s dominance in manufacturing make the two a good fit, observers say. This is playing out. A report by energy think tank Ember, for instance, found Africa’s imports of solar panels from China rose a whopping 60 percent in the 12 months to June 2025.

According to Gu at the Institute of Development Studies, China will be looking to tap into this growing synergy with Africa and will deliver a three-fold message at this year’s G20.

“First, it will stress stability and the importance of global rules and regulations,” she said. Second, “it will link the G20 to the Global South and highlight issues like development and green transformation”.

Third, “by offering issue-based leadership on topics such as digital economy, artificial intelligence and governance, it will position itself as a problem-solver rather than a disruptor”, the economist added.

China as a bastion of multilateralism

An absence of American officials at this year’s G20 – after skipping the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Korea as well as the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil – would be “another opportunity for China”, Rosemary Foot, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

“It can contrast, yet again, its declared commitment to multilateralism and responsible behaviour as a major state versus the dangers of a unilateralist America focusing not on public goods but on benefits to itself only.”

China has been looking to expand its influence in Africa as a counterweight to the US-led world order. In stark contrast to Trump’s decision to end Africa’s duty-free era and slap 15-30 percent tariffs on 22 nations, Xi announced at the APEC summit last month a zero-tariff policy for all African nations with diplomatic ties to Beijing.

On that occasion, Xi emphasised China’s commitment “to joint development and shared prosperity with all countries”, stressing the country’s goal to “support more developing countries in achieving modernisation and opening up new avenues for global development”.

Similarly, Li, China’s premier, marked the United Nations’ 80th anniversary at the General Assembly in September by expressing the need for stronger collective action on climate change and emerging technologies, calling for greater solidarity to “[lift] everyone up, while division drags all down”.

His remarks were in stark contrast to Trump’s, who, in his speech, described climate change as the “greatest con job ever perpetrated” and called renewable sources of energy a “joke” and “pathetic”.

Foot said the spotlight will now be on Beijing as it seeks to strike a similar conciliatory pose – and in doing so, set itself apart from the US – at the G20. “Whether Beijing will have a major impact on the G20 agenda is more difficult to determine,” she said.

Bola Tinubu says he suspended the trip in light of the abductions and a separate church attack in which armed men killed two people.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has postponed his trip to South Africa for the Group of 20 summit, promising to intensify efforts to rescue 24 schoolgirls abducted by armed men earlier this week.

The president’s spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, said in a statement on Wednesday that Tinubu suspended his departure in light of the girls’ abduction and a separate church attack in which gunmen killed two people.

Tinubu had been set to leave on Wednesday, days before the two-day summit of the world’s leading rich and developing nations was due to begin on Saturday.

“Disturbed by the security breaches in Kebbi State and Tuesday’s attack by bandits against worshippers at Christ Apostolic Church, Eruku, President Tinubu decided to suspend his departure” to the G20 summit, Onanuga said.

It was not clear immediately if or when Tinubu would leave for the weekend summit in Johannesburg.

Search for abducted girls ongoing

The schoolgirls were abducted by unidentified armed men from a secondary school in the northwestern town of Maga in Kebbi State late on Sunday night.

The attackers exchanged gunfire with police before scaling the perimeter fence and abducting the students.

One of the girls managed to escape, authorities said, but the school’s vice principal was killed. No group immediately claimed responsibility for abducting the girls, and their motivation was unclear.

Authorities say the gunmen are mostly former herders who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over strained resources.

In a separate attack on a church in western Nigeria on Tuesday, armed men killed two people during a service that was recorded and broadcast online.

Supporters of United States President Donald Trump have seized on the violence to embolden their claim that Christians are under attack in Nigeria.

Trump has threatened to invade Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” over what right-wing lawmakers in the US allege is a “Christian genocide“.

Nigeria has rejected the US president’s statements, saying more Muslims have been killed in the country’s various security crises.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — President Trump says that his government will boycott the Group of 20 summit this month in South Africa over his claims that a white minority group there is being violently persecuted. Those claims have been widely rejected.

Trump announced Friday on social media that no U.S. government official will attend the Nov. 22-23 summit in Johannesburg “as long as these Human Rights abuses continue.” South Africa’s Black-led government has been a regular target for Trump since he returned to office.

In February, Trump issued an executive order stopping U.S. financial assistance to South Africa, citing its treatment of the Afrikaner white minority. His administration has also prioritized Afrikaners for refugee status in the U.S. and says they will be given most of the 7,500 places available this fiscal year.

The South African government — and some Afrikaners themselves — say Trump’s claims of persecution are baseless.

Descendants of European settlers

Afrikaners are South Africans who are descended mainly from Dutch but also French and German colonial settlers who first came to the country in the 17th century.

Afrikaners were at the heart of the apartheid system of white minority rule from 1948-94, leading to decades of hostility between them and South Africa’s Black majority. But Afrikaners are not a homogenous group, and some fought against apartheid. There are an estimated 2.7 million Afrikaners in South Africa’s population of 62 million.

Afrikaners are divided over Trump’s claims. Some say they face discrimination, but a group of leading Afrikaner business figures and academics said in an open letter last month that “the narrative that casts Afrikaners as victims of racial persecution in post-apartheid South Africa” is misleading.

Afrikaners’ Dutch-derived language is widely spoken in South Africa and is one of the country’s 12 official languages. Afrikaners are represented in every aspect of society. Afrikaners are some of South Africa’s richest entrepreneurs and some of its most successful sports stars, and also serve in government. Most are largely committed to South Africa’s multiracial democracy.

Trump claims they’re being ‘killed and slaughtered’

Trump asserted that Afrikaners “are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated.” The president’s comments are in reference to a relatively small number of attacks on Afrikaner farmers that he and others claim are racially motivated.

Trump has also pointed to a highly contentious law introduced by the South African government that allows land to be appropriated from private owners without compensation. Some Afrikaners fear that law is aimed at removing them from their land in favor of South Africa’s poor Black majority. Many South Africans, including opposition parties, have criticized the law, but it hasn’t led to land confiscations.

Trump first made baseless claims of widespread killing of white South African farmers and land seizures during his first term in response to allegations aired on conservative media personality Tucker Carlson’s former show on Fox News. Trump ordered then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into the allegations, but nothing came of any investigation.

South Africa rejects the claims

The South African government said in response to Trump’s social media post that his claims were “not substantiated by fact.” It has said that Trump’s criticism of South Africa over Afrikaners is a result of misinformation because it misses the context that Black farmers and farmworkers are also killed in rural attacks, which make up a tiny percentage of the country’s high violent crime rate.

There were more than 26,000 homicides in South Africa in 2024. Of those, 37 were farm murders, according to an Afrikaner lobby group that tracks them. Experts on rural attacks in South Africa have said the overriding motive for the violent farm invasions is robbery, not race.

Other pressure on South Africa

Trump said it is a “total disgrace” that the G-20 summit — a meeting of the leaders of the 19 top rich and developing economies, the European Union and the African Union — is being held in South Africa. He had already said he wouldn’t attend, and Vice President JD Vance was due to go in his place. The U.S. will take on the rotating presidency of the G-20 after South Africa.

Trump also said in a speech last week that South Africa should be thrown out of the G-20.

Trump’s criticism of Africa’s most developed economy has gone beyond the issue of Afrikaners. His executive order in February said South Africa had taken “aggressive positions towards the United States and its allies,” specifically with its decision to accuse Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza at the United Nations’ top court.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio boycotted a G-20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa in February after deriding the host country’s G-20 slogan of “solidarity, equality and sustainability” as “DEI and climate change.”

Imray writes for the Associated Press.

Nov. 8 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said the United States will not participate in the upcoming G20 conference in South Africa due to that nation’s alleged racial policies and killings of Afrikaners.

The G20 is scheduled Nov. 22 and 23 at the NASREC Expo Centre in Johannesburg, but the president cited the treatment of Dutch, French and German settlers and migrants as a cause for boycotting the event.

“It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday.

“Afrikaners … are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” the president said. “No U.S. government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue.”

Afrikaners have experienced rising hostility from some politicians and others in South Africa, including those who encourage violence and land confiscation.

The nation’s Expropriation Act of 2024 enables the South African government to confiscate land for public use, and without paying in some instances, in order to address matters involving equity, according to Fox News.

Many view the act as a mechanism to target white South African farmers and take their land without compensation, and Trump has accused South Africa of engaging in genocide.

The South African foreign ministry denied any racial oppression had occurred in a prepared statement shared with the BBC.

“The South African government wishes to state, for the record, that the characterization of Afrikaners as an exclusively white group is ahistorical,” the foreign ministry said.

“Furthermore, the claim that this community faces persecution is not substantiated by fact.”

When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited Trump at the White House in May, the president raised the matter of genocide against Caucasians in South Africa.

Ramaphosa denied any genocide has occurred and cited prior oppression of South Africans.

“We cannot equate what is alleged to be genocide to what we went through in the struggle because people were killed because of the oppression that was taking place in our country,” Ramaphosa told the president.

Trump then played a video that allegedly showed white crosses placed along a South African highway to mark where the bodies of white farmers are buried, Fox News reported.

Ramaphosa asked where the white crosses were located and said he never had seen the alleged video evidence.

Trump has granted refugee status to Afrikaners despite the South African government earlier saying claims of genocide are “widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence,” the BBC reported.

The G20 is a collection of 19 nations, plus the European Union, and was formed in 1999 to promote global economic stability in the wake of Asian financial troubles.

The G20 collectively represents 85% of the world’s economic output and two-thirds of its population and meets annually to discuss matters affecting member states and the world.

The United States is scheduled to host the annual event next year in Miami.

Trump calls it a ‘disgrace’ that South Africa is hosting the G20, reiterates debunked claims of a ‘genocide’ against white farmers.

President Donald Trump has said no United States officials will attend this year’s Group of 20 (G20) summit in South Africa, citing the country’s treatment of white farmers.

Writing on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump said it was a “total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa”.

“Afrikaners (People who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants) are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated,” Trump wrote, reiterating claims that have been rejected by authorities in South Africa.

“No US Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue. I look forward to hosting the 2026 G20 in Miami, Florida!” he added.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly claimed that white South Africans are being persecuted in the Black-majority country, a claim rejected by South Africa’s government and top Afrikaner officials.

Trump had already said on Wednesday that he would not attend the summit – which will see the heads of states from the world’s leading and emerging economies gather in Johannesburg on November 22 and 23 – as he also called for South Africa to be thrown out of the G20.

US Vice President JD Vance had been expected to attend the meeting in place of the president. But a person familiar with Vance’s plans told The Associated Press news agency that he will no longer travel to South Africa.

Tensions first arose between the US and South Africa after President Cyril Ramaphosa introduced a new law in January seeking to address land ownership disparities, which have left three-quarters of privately owned land in the hands of the white minority more than three decades after the end of apartheid.

The new legislation makes it easier for the state to expropriate land, which Ramaphosa insists does not amount to confiscation, but creates a framework for fair redistribution by allowing authorities to take land without compensation in exceptional circumstances, such as when a site has been abandoned.

Shortly after the introduction of the Expropriation Act, Trump accused South Africa of “confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY”.

“The United States won’t stand for it, we will act,” he said.

In May, Trump granted asylum to 59 white South Africans as part of a resettlement programme that Washington described as giving sanctuary after racial discrimination.

The same month, when Trump met with President Ramaphosa in the White House, he ambushed him with the claim that a “genocide” is taking place against white Afrikaners in his country.

Ramaphosa denied the allegations, telling Trump “if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you, these three gentlemen would not be here”, pointing to three white South African men present – professional golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen, and South Africa’s richest man, Johann Rupert.

South African historian Saul Dubow, professor of Commonwealth history at the University of Cambridge, previously told Al Jazeera that there is no merit to “Trump’s fantasy claims of white genocide”.

Dubow suggested that Trump may be more angry about South Africa’s genocide case filed against Israel in the International Court of Justice over its war on Gaza.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration has maintained its claim of widespread persecution. On October 30, the White House indicated that most new refugees admitted to the US will be white South Africans, as it slashed the number of people it will admit annually to just 7,500.

“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa pursuant to Executive Order 14204 and other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands,” the White House said.