Controversy and speculation swirl around next two G20 summits — largely due to Donald Trump

The November G20 Summit in South Africa will be the latest of the annual global gatherings that began in 1999 in response to a series of global financial and economic crises that pointed to a need for more coordinated international efforts. The G20 arose out of an earlier, more limited gathering — the G8 (now the G7 with the exclusion of Russia as a result of its depredations on Ukraine).

The G20’s membership comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and the African Union. There are several guest invitees, including Spain, the United Nations, the World Bank and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The G20 was the latest of post–World War 2 initiatives aimed at improving the international coordination of economic policy. Earlier institutions include the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade — now reconfigured as the World Trade Organization.

One potential competitor formation, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, has become increasingly visible as a function of China’s rising international economic weight. Unlike the other formally constituted international forums, the G20 has no central, continuing bureaucracy and no enforcement mechanisms or ability to invoke formal sanctions or decisions (In that respect, the annual BRICS forums are similar in nature).

This year’s G20 host is South Africa, after Brazil did the honours, and South Africa will pass the baton to the US at the November meeting. This is where challenges for the forum begin.

Trump’s distrust

Incumbent US President Donald Trump has demonstrated a distrust for international bodies generally, and the G20 has been no exception. In the first seven months of his administration he declined to have his secretary of state participate in preparatory meetings. Importantly, he has given no assurances that he will attend the Johannesburg summit in person — hinting broadly he would not, given the sour state of US-South African relations over tariffs, a presumed persecution of white Afrikaner farmers, and charges that South Africa has aligned itself with Russia, China, Iran and Hamas.

Most recently, though, on Friday, 5 September, according to The Washington Post, “Trump does not plan to attend this year’s G20 gathering of world leaders in South Africa, and will send Vice President JD Vance instead, he said Friday.”

There are several ways to see this presumptive decision.

First, there remains a chance Trump will change his mind at the last minute, given the “too good to miss” opportunity a G20 provides to address (or browbeat) a group of leaders whose nations collectively represent the vast majority of the planet’s total economic activity.

Second, his attendance, per se, does not matter very much. The country would still be represented, albeit at a less senior level. Any pronouncements to be made would just as easily come from the vice-president as from the president.

There is, after all, a long tradition of sending vice-presidents to international meetings and visits on behalf of presidents, a tradition beautifully satirised by the month-long trip of the vice-president to a group of African nations in the film “Dave.” This comes about because the vice-president has few formal duties to perform in the normal course of events, and Trump is well-known for not enjoying official international visits, unless he is fawned upon. A G20 meeting has many more leaders than just him.

Third, even if Trump attended, given the location of this year’s meeting, there is the likelihood South Africa might pay more public attention to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, than the US president, although there remains the question of whether Putin will attend, given the indictments against him by the International Criminal Court for the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children and other criminal behaviour.

The absence of Trump and virtual participation of Putin might well create a rather more downscaled meeting physically, with the star of the show being the Chinese leader. Such a meeting would not, in all likelihood, preclude NGO protests over any number of things.

A questionable venue

Trump’s issues with the G20 extend beyond the upcoming meeting. He announced that next year’s meeting will take place at his golf course estate, the Doral, in Miami, Florida. While the choice of venue is his prerogative, this decision will generate the same kind of criticism a previous decision to host a G7 meeting there raised — that it represented self-promotion, special dealing and revenue generation for his family business.

Any such meeting means that hundreds of the leaders’ staffers, diplomats, the media and commentators, NGO observers and miscellaneous hangers-on all descend upon the site, staying in hotel rooms, eating and drinking throughout the meeting, as well as before it even begins.

As The Washington Post reported, “President Donald Trump plans to host next year’s Group of 20 summit at his Doral golf resort in Florida, fulfilling his wish to host a major gathering of world leaders at one of his properties after bowing to criticism of self-dealing over a similar proposal during his first term.

“‘I think that everybody wants it there because it’s right next to the airport. It’s the best location. It’s beautiful,’ Trump said Friday, of the decision to host the summit at the resort just west of Miami. Trump’s decision reflects the unconstrained approach he has taken during his second term — rejecting the guardrails that once constrained him when it came to mixing personal business with his public office.”

There are echoes in this of the way the now-closed Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington — a few blocks from the White House — became the unofficial but de facto gathering place and watering hole for international visitors, diplomats, lobbyists and would-be influence peddlers. That was something Trump did little to dissuade in his first term of office.

In a White House event on Friday, Trump claimed he would “not make any money” holding the summit at the Doral resort next year.

“We’re doing a deal where it’s not going to be money. There’s no money in it. I just want it to go well,” he said. We can assume, however, that he will not be providing the space, the food, the beverages and the electronic infrastructure gratis.

Significant boost

The Post added, “With the decision to host it at his property, Trump will now be free to direct business from at least 20 international delegations toward the Doral resort — which has the potential to provide a significant boost to his bottom line. Leaders travel with major contingents, bringing scores of bodyguards, advisers and ministers. Some delegations arrive days in advance and stick around long after. Trump said G20 officials ‘actually requested that it be there’ due to the location, and he noted the significant demand for event space in Miami during the winter months.”

That event has raised the interesting question of whether or not Putin and Xi would attend it. In his briefing, Trump claimed incorrectly that they could only do so as “observers” and speculated they would not want to attend in that capacity. The Post noted, “Both countries are members of the group. Xi has regularly attended G20 summits in recent years. Putin, meanwhile, has been skipping them, first because of the Covid pandemic and then because his 2022 invasion of Ukraine made him an international pariah facing an arrest warrant.” Trump, in fact, first met Putin at the 2017 G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.

Apparently, the Doral is already undergoing substantial construction. As a counterpoint to assertions that everyone wants to be there, the Trump business empire has been arguing that its tax bill is too high and should be reduced. A Trump tax consultant told the Miami-Dade municipal government that Trump’s partisan politics were the reason his business has been underperforming. Thus, it makes sense to use an international gathering as one really great way to up the level of international branding and usage.

Stay tuned for last-minute turnarounds on who will be attending this year in Johannesburg, as well as a rising tide of complaints about the use of a Trump golf club as the next home for the G20 Summit. Such issues may well overwhelm any efforts to focus on what will actually be discussed, or what will go into the final communique, or even the nature of the traditional shirts worn by leaders for the class photograph. DM