LETTER | EU must stand up to President Donald Trump the bully

President Cyril Ramaphosa has communicated our national position, pertinently so, that SA will not attempt to gatecrash the G20 programme in the US.

If the hosts don’t want us in their home we have no intention to kick down the door.

A spokesperson for the department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) put it in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, that SA will take a “commercial break” and resume its G20 activities when the rotating presidency passes on to Britain at the end of 2026.

But behind the scenes, Dirco has written to other permanent members urging them to take a stand against President Donald Trump’s unwarranted decision to bar SA from the US leg of the presidency.

Trump has even taken the daring step to shut out SA from the G20 Troika.

This is an established institutional platform made up of the current presidency, the immediate past and the next presidency to ensure continuity.

In the Dirco “note verbale” to embassies, director-general Zane Dangor points out that member states can only be “uninvited” through consensus and by no means through the unilateral action of a host presidency.

But should it even be necessary for member states to be prompted into an objection?

Trump is setting right in front of their eyes a grave precedent which could threaten the future stability of the alliance.

What if another host presidency in future were to decide to “uninvite” a member state over petty bilateral political differences?

It is my submission that the EU more than the other G20 member states has a bigger responsibility to act.

As his closest allies, they have a duty to call a stop to Trump’s impetuous nonsense, more so that they have also been victims of his bullying since he started his second term in the White House.

As the richest man in the room, he has accused them of leeching off the US for the military defence of Europe.

He threatened that the US would withhold its funding if they didn’t contribute more to Nato’s budget.

Like naughty schoolboys in the headmaster’s office, proud nations cowered in front of the rich bully and made all sorts of promises to keep him happy.

And then there’s Ukraine.

Trump is trying to reach a deal through bilateral negotiations with President Vladimir Putin.

A key part of his proposed peace plan is for Ukraine to surrender the territory already occupied by Russia.

The EU on the other hand stands with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

They insist any territorial concessions to Russia would be suicidal.

Their position is that Putin continues to pose a military threat to Europe.

If he is given a hand he will most certainly come back for the rest of the arm.

For his part Zelensky, if anyone would bother to listen to him, says he has no mandate to surrender any portion of his homeland to an invading force.

Trump seemingly is determined to chug along with or without the EU.

He is evidently driven by a burning desire to rush back home to claim vaingloriously that he ended yet another war “single-handedly”.

That “single-handedly” mentality is what he has brought into the G20, and which could imperil unity within the alliance.

The EU should not allow this egotistical man to continue bullying them on multilateral platforms.

It needs to be pointed out to Trump that the host presidency has no authority to unilaterally or single-handedly “univite” any member state, not least a founding member like SA.

The G20 is steeped in the principle of consensus.

In any event his tirade against SA of a “white genocide” or “persecution of Afrikaners” is a ludicrous false flag.

His unstated motive is to punish SA for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the Gaza genocide.

He is doing, as he has diligently done since taking office, the bidding of Benjamin Netanyahu who has an International Criminal Court warrant of arrest over his head for war crimes against Palestinians.

But should the G20 allow itself to be derailed by bilateral political spats between member states?

The answer to that question lies in the framing of the current stand-off.

Rather than a tiff between Trump and SA, this in essence is a matter between the G20 and the US as a member state over foundational principles.

And the EU should take the lead in asserting the key principle that no one member state wields the power to dictate to the G20 how to conduct its business.