US President Donald Trump’s declaration that SA will not be invited to the G20 summit to be held near Miami in 2026 may, on the face of it, seem like more of his absurd, spiteful and bullying theatrics.
After all, SA, which he openly despises, recently earned praise from world leaders for its successful hosting of the 2025 G20 Summit.
It is the first time in 26 years that the summit has been hosted on this continent.
Its success came about despite Trump’s nasty decision to exclude his country’s participation because of his dislike of SA and the lies he consistently spreads about the “violent persecution” of white Afrikaners here.
Trump bizarrely claimed his decision to bar SA came about because President Cyril Ramaphosa, as incumbent G20 president, had eschewed the tradition of handing over the presidency baton to the next-in-line US at the summit.
However, in the absence of the US attending, Ramaphosa had little choice but to later hand over the “instruments of the G20 presidency” to a US Embassy official after the summit. There was no snub, intended or otherwise.
Trump’s posturing is about trying to extort power to himself.
He does it all the time. He has wrenched from the US Congress its spending authority, or the so-called “power of the purse”, by unilaterally slashing staff and spending in vital agencies.
He has breached international trade agreements with dozens of countries with his ridiculous tariffs and violated Congress’s funding undertakings to developing nations, including SA.
But his decision to exclude SA from the 2026 G20 Summit is not just theatrics.
It is once again the damaging utterances of a weak man in charge of a powerful country trying to dictate terms to a forum of the world’s most powerful economies.
While his decision has been met with outrage by citizens across the globe, world leaders have so far been somewhat coy. At least Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz has “urged” Trump to reconsider.
Quite clearly, using diplomatic back channels will not work with a bully like Trump.
One can only hope other G20 countries will be more forceful in their insistence that SA be included. And they need to do it now, not in a year’s time when it has become a crisis.
If he persists in excluding SA, then the G20 can always be held in another nearby member country such as Canada.
If G20 members acquiesce in this decision, then Trump is right in his belief that he, and the US, get to dictate all terms.
And that undermines the very purpose of the G20 and its supposed dedication to “solidarity, equality and sustainability”.
One can only hope that won’t happen. Someone needs to throw down the gauntlet.
Daily Dispatch
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