CLEO ROSE-INNES: There’s a new sheriff in town so SA’s G20 presidency may be the last

SA is the last country in the rotation of Group of 20 (G20) countries to host the annual summit, which means the G20 presidency will be returned to the US in 2026. However, the Trump administration has little interest in this group or the US’s continued global leadership of a liberal international rules-based order, so 2025 could be the last of these meetings. 

The first G20 summit meeting was hurriedly convened by president George W Bush in November 2008 in Washington, DC. Its one objective: get rapid agreement, and visibility of that agreement, that all systemically significant (in capital market terms) countries were working together to respond to the 2007-08 global financial crisis.

As the US presidential handover was in process at the time, Bush passed the G20 leadership to British prime minister Gordon Brown for the first half of 2009. It was then returned to US president Barack Obama, who hosted a third G20 summit in September 2009, when victory was declared and the global economy declared stable.

One of the useful things about summits is that they provide valuable space for “facetime” or bilateral meetings on urgent issues, often unrelated to the meeting agenda. The Trump administration has little need of these. Within the first four weeks of the current US presidency, two G20 heads of state — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba — had made their way to the White House.

Furthermore, Trump dislikes summitry. He likes a stage, but he also likes to be liked and many of the leaders of G20 member states do not like him. The meme-worthy photograph that German chancellor Angela Merkel’s office released in the aftermath of the 2018 Group of Seven (G7) summit clearly illustrated how he refuses to engage with those who disagree with him.

Traditional allies

He has been quick to communicate this dislike and signal who he thinks worth talking to in these countries. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Argentinian President Javier Milei were invited to his inauguration, but the leadership of traditional allies were replaced with representation from far-right movements within their countries. 

Nigel Farage of the Reform UK party was invited, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was not. Eric Zemmour of the Reconquest party was invited, but French President Emmanuel Macron was not. Germany President Olaf Scholz did not get an invitation while the leader of the Alternative for Germany party, Alice Weidel, did.

This was not a one-off, petty act of revenge. The key message that these groups should have more voice was echoed in US vice-president JD Vance’s “There is a new sheriff in town” speech in Munich on February 14.

Trump has no time for the rules, alliances and institutions that have shaped the global economy and international relations since the end of World War 2. Getting agreements within these structures requires nuance, patience and compromise, even from the US, a country that has veto power over the decisions of several.

He prefers doing “deals”, placing himself at the centre of every negotiation, as his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has found in the recent negotiations on Ukraine’s future. The Trump cabinet quickly falls in line behind the president’s unexpected public statements, as these become national policy. 

Days after Trump weighed in on SA’s land reform policies as “openly racist ownership laws”, Rubio announced that he would not attend last week’s first meeting of G20 foreign ministers in SA, stating that did not intend to “waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism”.

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent followed suit, announcing on X that there was no need for him to attend the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors’ meeting as: “I am in regular contact with my global counterparts working to advance President Trump’s agenda”. 

Diplomatic spat

However, the diplomatic spat with SA provides a convenient excuse to marginalise the G20, as the Trump administration is increasingly at odds with the broad consensus on topics on the agenda. On trade, Trump has immediately begun threatening tariffs in bewildering ways; on climate, he has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement; on energy policy, he is actively and aggressively promoting fossil fuel extraction; on health, the new secretary is an avowed vaccine sceptic.

Perhaps most alarming of all, on bribery, corruption and tax evasion Trump announced the US’s exit from an agreement to co-operate on tax evasion and tax havens reached within the G20 and paused all future bribery investigations and enforcement under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 

The unilateralism is evident in the attitude to development finance and global financial institutions. The Presidential Transition Plan, also called Project 2025, proposes that the US “withdraw from both the World Bank and the IMF” and that it “force reforms and new policies” that include “the addition of a large new cadre of US professionals ... if the US is to provide economic assistance or humanitarian aid to other nations, it should do so unilaterally — not through the pass-throughs of international aid organisations, NGOs or other nations. These organisations and countries simply create expensive middlemen, while US funds are intercepted before being distributed to those in need.”

These actions and attitudes are accelerating the inevitable decline of the central place the US has had in determining relationships between countries that has dominated the past 80 years. However, this does not end relationships between countries, it merely changes them. New political coalitions and arrangements are already emerging, though the extent to which these will reflect the liberal internationalist ideas remains to be seen.

SA is doing its level best to ensure it does, keeping cool as the world’s most powerful man comments on sensitive domestic issues and stressing the importance of co-operation, common ground and constructive engagement in international relations.

• Dr Rose-Innes, a former senior Treasury official and adviser to the executive director of the World Bank representing Angola, Nigeria and SA, is a development finance consultant based in Washington.