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G20 summit in South Africa adopts declaration despite US boycott, opposition
Story by Reuters
8 hr ago
World leaders pose for a family photo during the G20 Leaders' Summit in Johannesburg on CNN World
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Johannesburg
Reuters
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A Group of 20 leaders’ summit in South Africa adopted a declaration addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges on Saturday after it was drafted without US input in a move a White House official called “shameful.”
The declaration, using language to which Washington has been opposed, “can’t be renegotiated,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s spokesperson told reporters, reflecting strains between Pretoria and the Trump administration over the event.
“We had the entire year of working towards this adoption and the past week has been quite intense,” the spokesperson said.
Ramaphosa, host of this weekend’s gathering of Group of 20 leaders in Johannesburg, had earlier said there was “overwhelming consensus” for a summit declaration.
Declaration mentions climate change
Envoys from the G20 - which brings together the world’s major economies – drew up a draft leaders’ declaration on Friday without US involvement, four sources familiar with the matter said.
The declaration used the kind of language long disliked by the Trump 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 US President Donald Trump, who doubts the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activities. US officials had indicated they would oppose any reference to it in the declaration.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A hiker looks out at the Aletsch Glacier - Switzerland's biggest glacier - on September 14, 2025 near Bettmeralp. Scientists from Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) have recorded 4.6 meters in diminished vertical thickness since last year at the glacier's upper section.
A hiker looks out at the Aletsch Glacier - Switzerland's biggest glacier - on September 14, 2025 near Bettmeralp. Scientists from Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) have recorded 4.6 meters in diminished vertical thickness since last year at the glacier's upper section. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
In opening remarks to the summit, Ramaphosa said: “There’s been overwhelming consensus and agreement that one of the other tasks we should undertake right at the beginning is to … adopt our declaration.”
“We should not allow anything to diminish the value, the stature and the impact of the first African G20 presidency,” he said.
His bold tone was a striking contrast to his subdued decorum during his visit to the White House in August, 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.
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WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 21: U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks during a meeting with President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office of the White House on May 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. Relations between the two countries have been strained since Trump signed an executive order in February that claimed white South Africans are the victims of government land confiscation and race-based “genocide” while admitting some of those Afrikaners as refugees to the United States. Trump also halted all foreign aid to South Africa and expelled the country’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Fact check: Trump’s false suggestion of a ‘genocide’ against White farmers in South Africa
Trump rejects South Africa’s G20 agenda
The US president has 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.
“The multilateral platform cannot be paralyzed on the basis of the absence of someone who was invited,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told public broadcaster SABC.
“This G20 is not about the US. It’s about all the 21 members of the G20. 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 “the weaponisation of dependencies” which she said “only creates losers.”
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the opening plenary session at the G20 Summit on November 22, 2025 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the opening plenary session at the G20 Summit on November 22, 2025 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Leon Neal/Pool/Reuters
This was an apparent veiled reference to China’s export curbs on rare earths vital for the world’s energy transition, as well as defense and digital technology.
The United States will host the G20 in 2026 and Ramaphosa said he would have to hand over the rotating presidency to an “empty chair.”
The South African presidency on Saturday reiterated its rejection of a US offer to send the US 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,” presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said.
“America chose to boycott the summit. That’s their choice, and that’s their prerogative to do so.”
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