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Could SA lead a move to bypass the US presidency of the G20 in 2026?

John Stremlau
By John Stremlau
17 Mar 2025
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The G20 could send an important message of international disapproval of Trump’s cruel version of ‘America First’ nationalism that has already hurt many undeserving countries, including South Africa.

The G20 Summit in Johannesburg from 22-23 November 2025 could be historic. Two issues are fundamental to the future of multilateralism.

The most urgent one is whether the G20 can deflect Donald Trump’s effort to undermine South Africa’s pluralistic democracy and multilateralism.

The other issue is related, and is the long-term strategic goal of South Africa and Africa to broaden and deepen North-South economic cooperation with help from G20 countries and other groups. This essay deals primarily with the first issue, which is a defining moment for SA foreign relations, as it is for other countries that support the aspirations of the G20.

Several of Trump’s closest advisers, including Elon Musk, were born and raised in apartheid South Africa, and appear to share his opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion. These values are entrenched in South Africa’s 1996 Constitution and at the interstate level, among the diversity of G20 countries.

The European Union (EU), a G20 member, demonstrated confidence in SA last week by sending a top delegation to meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa and pledging R94-billion, mainly to counter climate change and to boost vaccine production.

Both are programmes backed by the US, with bipartisan congressional support. The EU’s timely backing of SA in this way is an implicit criticism of Trump’s foreign policy.

So, what are the prospects of South Africa brokering a consensus among the non-US members of the politically diverse G20 to bypass the US presidency of the G20 in 2026?

Trump’s contempt for SA and the G20


On 7 February 2025, Trump issued an executive order declaring that South Africa “poses national security threats to our nation”. He immediately halted all assistance to South Africa and offered the tiny, but privileged, white Afrikaner community refugee status in the US.

Two days prior to showing his contempt for South Africa and the G20, Trump ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio not to attend a foreign ministers’ planning meeting for the November G20 Summit because it was held in SA.

He later also refused to allow his Secretary of Finance, Scott Bessant, for the same reason, to attend a G20 meeting of finance ministers. Whether Trump will attend the November 2025 summit in SA hasn’t been declared.

Further undermining US-SA bilateral diplomacy in this year of SA’s G20 presidency was Rubio’s post last Friday night - again on Musk’s platform X - that SA’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, is “considered PERSONA NON GRATA”.

A fresh start?


The G20 was formed in 1999 as a non-institutionalised multilateral organisation, comprised of politically diverse countries that represent 85% of global GDP.  

At the 2011 summit hosted by France, the G20 agreed to appoint a troika of countries every three years - currently Brazil, SA and the US - to give the organisation more stability. Normally, US bipartisan support of the G20 would prevail, even though the current troika was agreed to by Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden.

But newly elected Trump recently called Biden “the worst president in history” in his first national address to a joint session of the US Congress, presumably further dismaying many G20 governments.

If the G20 were to name a new 2026-28 troika at the Johannesburg summit, which countries would be willing to serve as hosts? This issue reportedly was raised informally by some delegates attending the February 2025 summit planning session of foreign ministers, a meeting that the US boycotted.

To select a new troika at the 2025 summit is theoretically feasible, given the nature of the G20, but the option is untested. It would require yet-undefined consensus among the non-US members: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom (UK), plus two regional members: the EU and the African Union.

If they could agree to bypass the Trump administration in 2026 by creating a new troika in 2025, this would be a big step forward for multilateralism and would show the extent to which the policies of the Trump administration are regarded by other major economic powers as wrong.

South Africa appears to be ready and able to mount this diplomatic challenge.

Prospects for a new troika


For 2026, there are at least two good prospects. Both nations are traditional friends and allies of the US, but critical of Trump’s policies. One is South Korea and the other is the UK. Both enjoyed lengthy interdependent relations with the US.

There are many other G20 members frustrated with Trump’s policies, including long-time friends and neighbours, with Canada and Mexico prime examples. And despite policy differences, there are many other prospective 2026-2028 G20 hosts without enlisting traditional adversaries of the US.  

Two powerful G20 countries, China and Russia, also have good relations with post-apartheid democratic South Africa and are likely to support or abstain on a 2025 summit decision to skip the US presiding in 2026.

Today’s multilateral imperatives


Trump’s foreign policy recalls Thucydides’ dictum issued two millenniums ago: The strong do as they will and the weak suffer what they must.  

But in today’s world, more and more nations recognise their collective need to address the climate crisis and global public health, and to agree on fair and just ways to regulate social media in an era of rapidly accelerating artificial intelligence. These are global diplomatic, political, economic and social challenges.

Ironically, other G20 countries see their interests as better served by “soft power” approaches, while Trump is dismissive of this approach that has been central to American foreign policy since 1945.

The G20 lacks institutional capabilities to reconcile the political and other issues that remain the prerogatives of sovereign members. It could, however, send an important message of international disapproval of Trump’s cruel version of “America First” nationalism that has already hurt many undeserving countries, including South Africa.

It is fortuitous to have South Africa as president of the G20 in 2025. The nation is a secure constitutional liberal democracy that also pursues a credible non-aligned foreign policy and advocates greater North-South cooperation.

South Africa is also one of very few countries that currently has the diplomatic skills and widespread goodwill to forge a viable consensus that would reject Trump’s version of America as a worthy successor to SA as the 2026 host of the G20. DM

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