'Can't Be Renegotiated': Ramaphosa After G20 Summit In South Africa Adopts Declaration Amid US Boycott

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the declaration adopted by G20 countries “cannot be renegotiated” even as the US boycotted the event accusing South Africa of weaponising its leadership this year.

The G20 declaration addresses the climate crisis and other global challenges and was adopted on Saturday (November 23) over US objections and without its input, reflecting strains between South Africa and the United States.

“We had the entire year of working towards this adoption and the past week has been quite intense,” Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told reporters.

Hours later, the White House said Ramaphosa was “refusing to facilitate a smooth transition of the G20 presidency” after initially saying he would pass the gavel to ‘an

empty chair’”.

“This, coupled with South Africa’s push to issue a G20 Leaders Declaration, despite consistent and robust US objections, underscores the fact that they have weaponised their G20 presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly.

Trump looks forward to “restoring legitimacy” to the group next year, when the US holds the rotating presidency. Ramaphosa, hosting the summit in Johannesburg this time, had earlier said there was “overwhelming consensus” for a summit declaration.

According to South African officials, however, at the last minute Argentina, whose far-right President Javier Milei is a close ally of Trump, quit the negotiations right before the envoys were about to adopt the draft text.

“Argentina, although it cannot endorse the declaration… remains fully committed to the spirit of cooperation that has defined the G20 since its conception,” Argentina’s foreign minister Pablo Quirno said at the summit. 

Ramaphosa noted this, but went ahead with the declaration. In explanation, Quirno said Argentina was concerned about how the document referred to geopolitical issues.

“Specifically it addresses the longstanding Middle East conflict in a manner that fails to capture its full complexity,” he said. “The document mentions the conflict once, saying members agree to work for a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace in…the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

DECLARATION MENTIONS CLIMATE CHANGE

Sources familiar with the matter said envoys from the G20 – which brings together the world’s major economies – drew up a draft leaders’ declaration on November 21 without US involvement.

“It is a longstanding G20 tradition to issue only consensus deliverables, and it is shameful that the South African government is now trying to depart from this standard practice,” a senior Trump administration official said.

The declaration used the kind of language long disliked by the US administration: stressing the seriousness of climate change and the need to better adapt to it, praising ambitious targets to boost renewable energy and noting the punishing levels of debt service suffered by poor countries.

The mention of climate change was a snub to Trump, who doubts the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities. Officials in the US had indicated they would oppose any reference to it in the declaration.

In opening remarks to the summit, Ramaphosa said: “We should not allow anything to diminish the value, the stature and the impact of the first African G20 presidency.”

His bold tone was a striking contrast to his subdued decorum during his visit to the White House in May, in which he endured Trump repeating a false claim that there was a genocide of white farmers in South Africa, brushing aside Ramaphosa’s efforts to correct his facts.

Trump said US officials would not attend the summit because of allegations, widely discredited, that the host country’s Black majority government persecutes its white minority.

TRUMP REJECTS SOUTH AFRICA’S G20 AGENDA

The summit came at a time of heightened tensions between world powers over Russia’s war in Ukraine and fraught climate negotiations at the COP30 in Brazil. 

The US president had also rejected the host nation’s agenda of promoting solidarity and helping developing nations adapt to weather disasters, transition to clean energy and cut their excessive debt costs.

“This G20 is not about the US,” South African foreign minister Ronald Lamola told public broadcaster SABC. “We are all equal members of the G20. What it means is that we need to take a decision. Those of us who are here have decided this is where the world must go.”

But in a sign of the many geopolitical fissures underlying the agreed text, EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen warned in a speech about “the weaponisation of dependencies”, which she said “only creates losers”.

This was an apparent veiled reference to China’s export curbs on rare earths vital for the world’s energy transition, as well as defence and digital technology. Premier Li Qiang called for unity amongst the G20 during a speech at the summit, saying differences in interests among parties and shortcomings in global cooperation are key obstacles to international unity.

“The G20 should face up to these problems, explore solutions and promote a return to the right track of unity and cooperation,” Li said in a statement from China’s foreign ministry.

The South African presidency has reiterated its rejection of a US offer to send its charge d’affaires for the G20 handover.

“The president will not hand over to a junior embassy official the presidency of the G20. It’s a breach of protocol that is not going to be accommodated,” Magwenya said.

Lamola later said South Africa will assign a diplomat of the same rank as a charge d’affaires to hand over the G20 presidency at the foreign affairs department.

(With Reuters inputs)