By Neil Munshi.
If US President Donald Trump was bent on ruining South Africa’s Group of 20 (G20) Summit as part of his overarching attack on the multilateral order, let it be said that he didn’t succeed – but he widened the cracks.
President Cyril Ramaphosa, beset by Trump’s false claims of white genocide in his country and a US boycott, managed to get the rest of the G20 to agree to a declaration, despite American threats.
That the declaration endorsed all the themes his administration has spent the year attacking – global solidarity, equality, sustainability – led one national newspaper to headline the first day: a “Bloody Nose for Trump”.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney echoed Ramaphosa when he said the world will move on without the US – particularly, perhaps, during a month in which Trump seems increasingly on his way to being a lame duck.
The summit “brought together nations representing three-quarters of the world’s population, two-thirds of global GDP and three-quarters of the world’s trade, and that’s without the United States formally attending”, Carney told a press conference on Sunday at the summit in Johannesburg.
“It’s a reminder that the centre of gravity in the global economy is shifting.”
Missing leaders
Still, there was plenty of evidence that Trump retains his clout. There was the first family photo, which was down several world leaders who had skipped the proceedings.
As well as Trump, that included China’s President Xi Jinping.
One of those who did make the trip was French President Emmanuel Macron, who in his opening remarks waxed prophetically: “We must also recognise that the G20 may be reaching the end of a cycle.”
That became increasingly clear as the weekend wore on, and the splintering of the multilateral order came into focus with Trump’s Ukraine peace plan. In its current form, it gives Russia almost everything it wants and left European leaders trying to formulate a response on the sidelines in Johannesburg.
“We are struggling to have a common standard on geopolitical crises,” Macron said in his opening remarks to the summit.
He could have been referring to the US-EU schism over Ukraine, but he may as well have been talking about the Western-Rest of World divide over that crisis, and others.
Western leaders huddle
At the summit, it was Western leaders huddling to determine how to respond to Trump.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted her own G7 mini-family photo, of the wealthiest countries minus the US dealing with the issue. Their Global South counterparts held their own side meetings.
Von der Leyen wrote on X: “We welcome the continued US efforts to bring peace to Ukraine.
“The initial draft of the 28-point plan includes important elements that will be essential for a just and lasting peace. “We believe therefore that the draft is a basis which will require additional work.
“We are ready to engage in order to ensure that a future peace is sustainable. We are clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force.
“We are also concerned by the proposed limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces, which would leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attack,” wrote Von der Leyen.
“We reiterate that the implementation of elements relating to the European Union and relating to NATO would need the consent of EU and NATO members respectively.
“We take this opportunity to underline the strength of our continued support to Ukraine. We will continue to coordinate closely with Ukraine and the US over the coming days.”
Countries ‘clustering’
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan used his time at the podium to talk about what he termed a genocide in Gaza; Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed concerns about the US military buildup in the Caribbean near Venezuela.
The habit of countries clustering at G20s “has gotten much worse with the US and China both no longer interested in multi-lateral institutions”, said Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, South Asia head for Eurasia Group.
“The EU is concerned about Ukraine, whereas the developing world is concerned about debt burden, trade, energy transition and emerging technologies.”
To that end, India, Brazil and South Africa revived their Brics-lite triad with a meeting between the three heads of state. India’s Narendra Modi met a dozen world leaders on the sidelines.
The UK and Indonesia inked a £4 billion ($5.2 billion) maritime deal. India, Australia and Canada used the G20 summit to launch a new partnership to develop emerging technologies. Ramaphosa even managed to keep African debt reduction on the agenda.
“The world is re-organising itself,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at a press conference on Sunday. “You could see it here that new connections are emerging.
“The US has played no role in all of this. I don’t think it was a wise decision on the part of the US to be absent here.”
© 2025 Bloomberg.