South Africa’s U.S.-Boycotted G20 Summit to Begin with ‘DEI and Climate Change’ Themes

( Breitbart )

The government of South Africa will host for the first time the G20 Summit over the weekend with the United States, the group’s most powerful member, notably absent.

Leaders from China, Argentina, Russia, and Mexico will also not be there.

G20 heads of state and representatives will gather in Johannesburg on November 22-23 for the Leader’s Summit, the capstone event of this year’s broader series of G20-related activities.

President Donald Trump said the United States — G20’s most powerful nation — will not send any representative and will boycott the event, citing the persecution, killing, and confiscation of land of Afrikaners in South Africa. Trump stressed that it is a “total disgrace” that South Africa is hosting G20 this year. 

“No U.S. Government Official will attend as long as these Human Rights abuses continue,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post earlier this month.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa downplayed the United States’s upcoming absence at the event in remarks to reporters last week, claiming it is “their loss” and that “boycotting never achieves anything of great impact, because decisions will be taken that will move the various issues ahead.”

Despite Ramaphosa’s claims, international outlets reported on Wednesday morning it is “unclear” if South Africa’s G20 presidency will be able to secure a consensus for a joint statement at the end of the gathering.

Other notable absences at the upcoming G20 Summit include China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, and Argentina’s Javier Milei, all of whom will reportedly send high-level officials to the meeting.

South Africa presently holds G20’s rotating chairmanship through November 30, when it will pass control of the chairmanship to the U.S., who is boycotting the upcoming Summit. The United States will host next year’s G20 Summit in Miami, Florida.  

The event’s organizers chose “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability” as the theme of this year’s gathering, focusing on “debt relief and financing measures to cope with disasters caused by climate change.” The South African G20 presidency lists “Just, Affordable and Inclusive Energy Transitions” as some of its key topics of discussion on the field of “energy transition.”

In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the theme as “DEI and climate change,” condemning the upcoming meeting as “anti-American.”  

“My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism,” Sec. Rubio said at the time.

The Independent reported South Africa will urge rich countries and international financial institutions to “help more” at G20, echoing the selfsame request that it issued at the COP30 climate alarmism conference in Belem, Brazil.

This weekend’s G20 Leader’s Summit will begin hours after the COP30 conference wraps up in Brazil on Friday, November 21.

The G20 is composed of 19 countries — Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkiye, the UK and the U.S. — and the European and African Unions.