The US capital will be welcoming the sherpas from the G20 nations on Monday and Tuesday. A founding member of the grouping, SA now finds itself on the outside, over unproven claims by the Trump administration that the SA government is standing by while white “genocide” takes place in its country. Pretoria has denied those claims.

But the relationship between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump has dramatically worsened with this latest G20 snub. Cameron Hume served as US Ambassador to SA between 2001 and 2004 and is concerned about the wider impact SA’s exclusion will have.

“Not inviting them to the meeting that’s in the US, to me is personally as a citizen churlish. I wouldn’t translate that into non-engagement and I think that some of our other partners will find our willingness, or our determination not to allow SA to participate to be mistaken,” Hume said.

One of those other partners, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, says they hope to change Trump’s mind and get him to reconsider including SA. Some analysts say without SA, the Global South lacks a leading voice to help drive change during the meetings.

Doctor Waheguru Pal Sidhu from the Center for Global Affairs at New York University echoes those sentiments may be scoring a cultural and political point for the United States but in the long run it is going to have a detrimental impact on the global economy,” Pal Sidhu said.

Instead of SA, the US has invited Poland, which while not a G20 member, does have similar right-leaning, nationalistic views to Trump.