The first-ever meeting of G20 leaders on African soil proved unusual for several reasons. The summit in South Africa also marked the first time the United States declined to take part in a gathering of the world’s largest economies.
It was equally atypical that this diverse group of states adopted a final declaration not at the close but at the very start of the proceedings, and that the ceremonial handover between the outgoing and incoming G20 chairs did not take place.
The Trump administration boycotted the event after Trump, without presenting evidence, accused South African authorities of seizing land owned by white farmers and tolerating killings of white Afrikaners. Washington also criticised what it called the summit’s agenda on “diversity, equity and inclusion”.
Despite U.S. attempts to derail the gathering, referenced by several officials and analysts, South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, appeared satisfied on Sunday as he summed up the event at a conference centre near Soweto. “In a nutshell… it has been a major success for our country,” he said.
That same day, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the meeting closed, striking the table with a ceremonial gavel. “This G20 gavel officially closes our meeting and passes the baton to the next G20 chair, which will be the United States. We will see each other there next year,” he said.
Ordinarily, the chair hands the gavel to the leader of the country hosting the next summit, but President Trump did not attend. Washington asked Ramaphosa to transfer the role to a junior staffer at the U.S. embassy, but South African officials refused. “This is a breach of protocol. Nothing like this has ever happened, and it could not start here in South Africa,” Ramaphosa’s spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, told reporters.
The handover will now take place on Monday between South African and American representatives of equivalent rank.
The U.S. sought to block the release of the final declaration, insisting on a “chair’s statement”. But Ramaphosa announced consensus and published the document without Washington’s participation
The United States also pressed South Africa not to issue a joint declaration after the summit and, if any document were to appear, to restrict it to a “chair’s statement”. Ramaphosa, however, who had said on the eve of the meeting that he would “not allow himself to be intimidated”, announced at Saturday’s opening session that consensus had been reached, and the final text was released without American involvement.
Although G20 declarations are not legally binding, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly criticised the decision, accusing Ramaphosa of having “failed to ensure a smooth transition of the G20 chair”. She added that Trump intends to “restore the group’s legitimacy” next year and plans to host the summit in Florida.
The document included language that has long irritated the Trump administration—among them references to the threats posed by climate change, the need to achieve “gender equality”, and the debt burdens facing low-income countries.
Argentina—whose libertarian president Javier Milei, a close ally of Trump, skipped the summit in solidarity and sent another delegation—expressed dissatisfaction with several provisions, but the declaration was adopted nonetheless.
World leaders thanked South Africa for its stewardship of the G20; France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, greeted Ramaphosa with a warm embrace. Yet despite Ramaphosa’s assessment that multilateralism had prevailed, Macron noted that the divisions within the group had hardly disappeared.
Ramaphosa stressed that South Africa had used the summit to place “the Global South at the centre of the agenda” and to “prioritise issues most important to developing economies”. Still, events in other parts of the world largely shaped the discussions on the sidelines.
European leaders issued a statement voicing concern over the new American peace plan for Ukraine, which some argue tilts the balance toward Moscow. They said the document requires “further work” and that the proposed limits on Ukraine’s armed forces would leave the country exposed to future attacks.
Separately, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on Sunday voiced concern over the build-up of American military forces near Venezuela’s borders.