President Cyril Ramaphosa will not hand over the presidency of the G20 to a US embassy representative after President Donald Trump refused to attend this weekend’s summit, the South African government said on Saturday.
The Trump administration boycotted the Johannesburg meeting, which wraps up on Sunday, and said it would send the chargé d’affaires of its embassy in South Africa for the handover. Washington is set to assume the 2026 presidency of the group of leading economies.
Ramaphosa “will not be handing over to the chargé d’affaires from the US,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told journalists.
“The United States is a member of the G20, and if they want to be represented, they can still send anyone at the right level,” he said.
This would be the head of state, minister, or a “special envoy appointed by the president”, Lamola said.
Otherwise, a handover could take place at government offices between officials of the same rank, he said.
Trump’s absence from the Johannesburg summit follows his withdrawal of the United States from other multilateral events and his feud with Pretoria over a range of international and domestic issues, including claims that white South Africans are persecuted.
The US embassy told South Africa ahead of the summit that South Africa’s priorities “run counter” to US policy views, and that no joint declaration could be issued after the meeting because of America’s absence and objections.
The meeting, which brought together nearly two dozen world leaders, adopted on Saturday a leaders’ declaration that called for peace in Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, as well as safeguards on the global supply of critical minerals.
“We cannot be held back by one country,” presidential spokesman Vincent Magwenya told reporters.
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