Cyril Ramaphosa closes G20 summit after US boycott and handover row

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, closed the G20 summit in Johannesburg by banging a gavel, having rejected a US proposal for him to hand over to a relatively junior embassy official for the next summit in Florida in a year’s time. South Africa presented the two-day event as a triumph for multilateralism but it was marred by a boycott by the US, which has repeatedly accused South Africa of discriminating against white-minority Afrikaners, a claim that has been widely discredited. Ramaphosa said in his closing speech: “We’ve met in the face of significant challenges and demonstrated our ability to come together, even in times of great difficulty, to pursue a better world.” Wrapping up his address, he said: “This gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year.” It was Ramaphosa’s only mention of the country absent from the gathering of the world’s largest economies. The G20 issued a declaration on Saturday emphasising the need to tackle climate change and achieve “gender equality”. Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from the Paris climate agreement on the first day of his second term in office and has reversed many policies designed to tackle sexism, racism and homophobia. The White House spokesperson Anna Kelly accused Ramaphosa of “refusing to facilitate a smooth transition of the G20 presidency”. “This, coupled with South Africa’s push to issue a G20 leaders’ declaration, despite consistent and robust US objections, underscores the fact that they have weaponised their G20 presidency to undermine the G20’s founding principles,” she said. South Africa had offered to arrange for an equivalent “junior” diplomat to formally hand the G20 presidency to the US at the foreign ministry. Officials had stated it would breach protocol for Ramaphosa to give it to the US acting ambassador. South Africa’s foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, told reporters: “From us, the ball has moved. We are done. It’s up to them. If they want to come, we are available.” The 2026 summit is scheduled to take place at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, which is owned by the Trump Organization. Argentina, whose president, Javier Milei, skipped the summit, also refused to endorse the declaration. Its foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, said: “Specifically it addresses the longstanding Middle East conflict in a manner that fails to capture its full complexity.” The G20 communique stated: “We will work for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ukraine, as well as ending other conflicts and wars around the globe.” The G20 was founded in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in 1999, with 19 nations and the European Union. The African Union was added in 2023. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum were also absent from the summit. Putin is wanted by the international criminal court, to which South Africa is a signatory. Xi has delegated attending many international gatherings this year to China’s premier, Li Qiang. Reuters contributed to this report