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The G20 goes ahead, says government, as Rubio announces a US boycott

The G20 goes ahead, says government, as Rubio announces a US boycott
Director-General of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Mr Zane Dangor, receiving 19 South African nationals who have been stuck in Gaza since 7 October 2023, were approved for evacuation into Egypt by the Israeli authorities, OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg, 5 December 2023 (Photo: Katlholo Maifadi/DIRCO)
Ferial Haffajee
By Ferial Haffajee
6 Feb 2025
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The G20 will go ahead despite the boycott by the US announced by its secretary of state overnight, says Department of International Relations and Cooperation Director-General and G20 sherpa Zane Dangor.

Two days after US President Donald Trump posted an attack on South Africa for its expropriation laws, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio has fired another digital shotgun.

In a post on X, Rubio said he would “NOT” attend the G20 heads of state meeting in November and probably not the foreign ministers preparatory meeting later in February. This could throw planning into disarray as South Africa is meant to hand over the reins of the G20 to the US at the November meeting. South Africa chairs the G20 group of countries including the African Union and the European Union.

Dangor told the Daily Maverick that Rubio’s decision was not unexpected but that the meeting would go ahead. Rubio objected to the themes South Africa has set for the meetings: these are solidarity, equality and sustainability. He equated this with “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion policies) and climate change (mitigation policies)”, both of which the Trump administration has set its face against.

“The themes we’ve chosen are a continuation of many G20 presidencies, including Italy’s. Solidarity, equality and sustainability are always important. We can’t change these themes because there’s an ideological opposition,” said Dangor.

He said the United Nations had set the themes for G20 annual meetings in line with the sustainable development global goals, and that as a member country, South Africa would follow these.

Anti-globalist


Asked if South Africa had tried to meet with its US counterparts, Dangor said the team they had been working with had been fired and that State Department officials were gone too. The move by Rubio was not unexpected as America is now anti-globalist and is quickly pulling out of global organisations and pacts, including the World Health Organization and the Paris Agreement to limit carbon emissions.

“We are a sovereign and democratic country committed to human dignity, equality, and rights, championing non-racialism and non-sexism while placing our Constitution and the rule of law at the forefront,” said Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Ronald Lamola in a statement following Rubio’s post.

Read in Daily Maverick: US Secretary of State Rubio drops bombshell, won’t attend G20 summit in SA, cites ‘anti-Americanism’

Zane Dangor, the director-general of the Department of International Relations and Cooperation. (Photo: Katlholo Maifadi / Dirco)



There are 130 meetings planned for G20 until November, but the US’s early pull-out is a blow to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans to hold a successful and unifying summit.

What could happen now is that it becomes a rallying point for what Anne Marie-Slaughter (a former State Department official and scholar) has called the “middle powers,” including the BRICS+ countries and which might include the European Union and others scalded by America’s rapid reshaping of how it places itself in the world. 

Amanda Khoza reported for News24 that Ramaphosa will not allow the US to derail his State of the Nation address later today, but two attacks in a week by Trump, his counterpart, and now by Rubio means he will have to determine a path through and set a goal for the year in geopolitics. DM

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