‘US giving up very important role’: Ramaphosa says US skipping G20 summit is ‘their loss’

President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday that the upcoming G20 summit in South Africa will go ahead as planned, calling the United States’ decision to boycott the event “their loss.”

Tensions between Pretoria and Washington over various policy issues, including South Africa’s summit agenda, led US President Donald Trump to announce over the weekend that no American officials would attend the Johannesburg meeting.

“We will take fundamental decisions and their absence is their loss,” AFP quoted Ramaphosa as telling reporters in the coastal city of Cape Town.

“In many ways, the United States is also giving up the very important role that they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world,” he added.

Scheduled for November 22–23, the summit will be the first G20 meeting ever held on African soil.

As the current G20 chair, South Africa aims to use its presidency to highlight Global South priorities, including strengthening climate resilience and addressing debt challenges in developing countries, before passing leadership to the United States next year.

The US has criticised South Africa’s summit theme, ‘Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,’ calling it “anti-American.”

“They’ve chosen to boycott, and boycotting never achieves anything of great impact, because decisions will be taken that will move the various issues ahead,” said Ramaphosa, alluding to a decision on the cost of debt, a hot-button issue for developing nations.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has repeatedly targeted South Africa on several fronts, including spreading debunked claims that white Afrikaners are being systematically “killed and slaughtered” in the country.

Earlier this year, he confronted President Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, showing a video alleging a government-led campaign against white farmers — a claim South Africa’s government denies.

In May, Trump offered refugee status to Afrikaners, descendants of the country’s first European settlers, with the first group of around 50 flown to the United States on a chartered plane.

The Trump administration has also criticised Pretoria over its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and over laws aimed at empowering black South Africans as part of post-apartheid efforts to address historical inequalities.

Founded in 1999, the Group of 20 (G20) comprises 19 countries plus two regional bodies —the European Union and the African Union — and accounts for 85 percent of global GDP and roughly two-thirds of the world’s population.

With inputs from agencies