What to know about this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa that Trump is boycotting

Article content

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Leaders from the Group of 20 countries will meet for a summit in South Africa this weekend without any U.S. representatives after President Donald Trump announced a boycott over his widely rejected claims that the host country is persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.

Article content

Trump’s decision to pull the United States — and himself _ out of the talks in Johannesburg is likely to undermine the first G20 leaders’ meeting in Africa, as well as South Africa’s aim to push for progress on issues affecting poor countries, such as the impact of climate change, the cost of green energy transition and spiraling sovereign debt levels.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Chinese leader Xi Jinping also won’t attend as he cuts back on international travel, meaning the heads of the world’s two biggest economies will skip a meeting meant to bring developed and developing countries together to tackle pressing global issues.

Article content

Article content

A bridge between rich and developing nations

Article content

The G20 is a group of 19 countries that includes the richest but also the top developing economies in the world. The European Union and the African Union, which joined in 2023, are also members, making it now a group of 21.

Article content

It was formed in 1999 and unlike the Group of Seven, which only includes the richest democracies, it offers some developing countries a forum to raise their problems.

Article content

Its focus is the global economy and international development, though it has no charter or permanent secretariat _ unlike organizations such as the United Nations. It also doesn’t issue binding decisions and critics say there’s no meaningful mechanism for it to put words into action.

Article content

The G20 often struggles to reach real consensus because of the different interests of the big powers like the U.S., China and Russia, as well as those of Western European nations.

Article content

Article content

The leaders of the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund typically attend G20 summits as guests.

Article content

The US boycott

Article content

Trump has claimed that white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa are being killed and that their land is being seized, calling it a disgrace that South Africa is hosting the summit and saying it should be thrown out of the G20.

Article content

The South African government and others, including some Afrikaners themselves, have rejected Trump’s claims of racial persecution as misinformation.

Article content

South Africa has been a target for Trump since he returned to office at the start of the year, with his administration casting the country as anti-American because of its diplomatic ties with China, Russia and Iran.

Article content

The U.S. will take over the rotating presidency of the G20 from South Africa and while the world’s biggest economy will boycott the talks, a representative from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa will attend a formal handover ceremony at the end of the summit, a White House official said.

Article content

The main issues

Article content

The country holding the G20 presidency gets to set the agenda for the annual summit.