G20 Summit Ends With Absence of US     11/24 06:17

   The Group of 20 summit in South Africa ended Sunday with the glaring absence 
of the United States -- the next country to lead the bloc -- after the Trump 
administration boycotted the two days of talks involving leaders of the world's 
richest and top developing economies.

   JOHANNESBURG (AP) -- The Group of 20 summit in South Africa ended Sunday 
with the glaring absence of the United States -- the next country to lead the 
bloc -- after the Trump administration boycotted the two days of talks 
involving leaders of the world's richest and top developing economies.

   South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the summit in Johannesburg 
closed by banging a wooden gavel on a block like a judge would, in a G20 
tradition. The gavel would normally be handed over to the leader of the next 
country to hold the rotating presidency, but no U.S. official was there to 
receive it.

   The world's biggest economy boycotted a summit meant to bring rich and 
developing nations together over President Donald Trump's claims that South 
Africa is violently persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.

   The White House said it intended in a last-minute decision for an official 
from its embassy in South Africa to attend the G20 handover. But South Africa 
refused that, saying it was an insult for Ramaphosa to hand over to a junior 
embassy official. In the end, no U.S. delegation was accredited for the summit, 
according to the South African Foreign Ministry.

   South Africa said the handover would happen later, possibly at its foreign 
ministry. Trump has said the U.S. will hold next year's summit at his golf club 
in Doral, Florida.

   "This gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on 
to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall 
see each other again next year," Ramaphosa said as he closed the summit, making 
no reference to the U.S. absence in his speech.

   Breaking with tradition

   The first G20 summit in Africa also broke with tradition on Saturday by 
issuing a leaders' declaration on the opening day of the talks, when 
declarations usually come at the end of the summit.

   The declaration was significant in that it came in the face of opposition 
from the U.S., which has for months been critical of a South African agenda for 
the group that largely focused on climate change and global wealth inequality 
-- focuses the Trump administration derided. Argentina said it also opposed the 
declaration after Argentine President Javier Milei -- a Trump ally -- also 
skipped the summit.

   Other G20 nations, including China, Russia, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan 
and Canada, backed the declaration, which called for more global attention on 
issues that specifically affect poor countries, such as the need for financial 
help for their recovery efforts after climate-related disasters, finding ways 
to ease their debt levels and supporting their transition to climate-friendly 
green energy sources.

   "South Africa has used this presidency to place the priorities of Africa and 
the Global South firmly at the heart of the G20 agenda," Ramaphosa said.

   After his speech, Ramaphosa was hugged and congratulated by other leaders 
for hosting a summit largely overshadowed by the U.S. boycott, and he was heard 
in a hot-mic moment that was not meant to be broadcast saying: "It was not 
easy."

   The G20 is 'struggling'

   South Africa championed its G20 declaration as a victory for the summit and 
for international cooperation in the face of the Trump administration's 
"America First" foreign policy. However, G20 declarations are general 
agreements by member countries that aren't binding, and their long-term impact 
has been questioned.

   Also, while the declaration included many of South Africa's priorities, some 
concrete proposals didn't make the document. There was no mention of a new 
international panel on wealth inequality, similar to the United 
Nations-appointed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which South Africa 
and others had called for.

   The G20 was formed in 1999 in response to the Asian financial crisis and is 
made up of 19 rich and developing economies, the European Union and the African 
Union, but some have questioned its effectiveness in helping solve the most 
prominent global crises, like the Russia-Ukraine war and tensions in the Middle 
East.

   The 122-point Johannesburg declaration made just one reference to Ukraine in 
a general call for an end to global conflicts and the summit appeared to have 
made no difference to the nearly four-year war, even as leaders or high-level 
delegations from all the major European nations, the EU and Russia sat in the 
same room for the G20 gathering.

   "Meeting for the first time on the African continent marks an important 
milestone," French President Emmanuel Macron said, but added the bloc was 
"struggling to have a common standard on geopolitical crises."

   A symbolic summit for poorer countries

   Still, some praised the summit as a significant symbolic moment for the G20.

   "This is the first ever meeting of world leaders in history where the 
inequality emergency was put at the center of the agenda," said Max Lawson of 
Oxfam, the international nonprofit that works to alleviate global poverty.

   "The importance of addressing development priorities from the African 
perspective cannot be overemphasized," said Namibia President Netumbo 
Nandi-Ndaitwah, whose southern African country of 3 million people was one of 
more than 20 smaller nations invited as guests to attend the summit alongside 
the G20 members.

   ___

   Follow AP's coverage of the G20 summit in South Africa: 
https://apnews.com/hub/g20-summit

   ---------

   itemid:76e36aa669a8e05ff5ad5495cc1252ed