G20 envoys have agreed on a draft leaders\u2019 declaration ahead of this weekend\u2019s summit in Johannesburg without United States (US) input, four sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The administration of US President Donald Trump has indicated that it will boycott the November 22-23 summit over disagreements with the host nation, South Africa (SA).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trump had said he would not attend the first G20 summit in Africa because of allegations, which have been widely debunked, that the host country\u2019s Black majority government persecutes its white minority.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He has also rejected the host nation\u2019s agenda of promoting solidarity and helping developing nations adapt to worsening weather disasters, transition to clean energy and cut their excessive debt costs.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WHITE HOUSE CALLS DRAFT DECLARATION \u2018SHAMEFUL\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a longstanding G20 tradition to issue only consensus deliverables, and it is shameful that the SA government is now trying to depart from this standard practice despite our repeated objections,\u201d a senior Trump administration official said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While fearing that a loss of participation from its most powerful member would scupper a declaration at the G20, some analysts still saw an opportunity for the SA hosts, determined to set an agenda for global leaders in the face of Trump\u2019s hostility to multilateral diplomacy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
None of the sources divulged details of the declaration\u2019s contents, and it was not clear what concessions had to be made on the language to get everyone to agree, especially around climate change, any mention of which the US had objected to being included in the discussion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Three out of four of SA\u2019s planned top agenda items, preparing for climate-induced weather disasters, financing the transition to green energy, and ensuring the rush for critical minerals benefits producers, were largely about climate change.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that SA was in discussions with the US, which will host the G20 in 2026, over its possible participation in the summit after all, although the White House later denied this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ramaphosa had earlier said he was resigned to handing over to an \u201cempty chair\u201d. The White House on Thursday said it would send the US charge d\u2019affaires for the G20 handover, an offer which SA\u2019s Presidency rejected.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15836,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,44],"class_list":["post-15835","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"G20 envoys have agreed on a draft leaders\u2019 declaration ahead of this weekend\u2019s summit in Johannesburg without United States (US) input","published_date":"2025-11-21 19:55:06","news_description":"G20 envoys have agreed on a draft leaders\u2019 declaration ahead of this weekend\u2019s summit in Johannesburg without United States (US) input","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/15835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/15835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19903,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/15835\/revisions\/19903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=15835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}