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.
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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.
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