South Africa Presses US on G-20 Absence as Leaders Summit Looms

South Africa will ask the US government to confirm its future participation in Group of 20 engagements, after American officials failed to attend a preparatory meeting this week. 

The US didn’t send a representative to a four-day meeting of lead negotiators — known as sherpas — that concluded on Friday in South Africa, the current president of the bloc. Its absence suggested relations between the two countries remain fraught, after President Cyril Ramaphosa sought to mend ties in a meeting with US counterpart Donald Trump at the Oval Office last month.

South African officials plan to contact the US government next week to discuss the issue, Ambassador Xolisa Mabhongo, who is supporting South Africa’s sherpa, said in an interview on Friday. Representatives from Brazil, which held the G20 presidency last year, will join the call, he said.

“We will do a call with them and that will be when we will be able to assess whether the US will be rejoining the process or whether they will stay out,” he said.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

South Africa, Brazil and the US — which is scheduled to take over the bloc’s presidency in 2026 – make up a so-called G20 troika that has met three times since the start of this year, with full participation by the US, Mabhongo said.

“There was an undertaking by the US sherpa that they would be participating in the process,” he said. “A month later, there was that article in the Washington Post that said that US agencies were given instruction to stay away. So since then, they never showed up in other meetings.”

Part of the reason for Ramaphosa’s trip to the White House last month was to encourage the US to recommit to the G20. His meeting with Trump took an unexpected turn when the US president confronted Ramaphosa with false claims of a genocide against White farmers. There have been no official land seizures in South Africa since apartheid ended in 1994, while police statistics show young Black men bear the brunt of violent crime.

The US has consistently pushed back against the host nation’s core themes of solidarity and equality, while Trump has remained noncommittal on whether he will attend a leaders’ summit scheduled for November.

With assistance from Kate Sullivan.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.