US ambassador nominee Leo Brent Bozell III, the founder and president of the Media Research Center, speaks during the ‘Climate Hustle’ panel discussion in Washington, DC on 14 April 2016. (Photo: Kris Connor / Getty Images) 
Several other G20 member states raised objections to the exclusion of South Africa from America’s G20, at the first meeting of sherpas, chaired by the US, in Washington this week.
But the US did not budge, sources told Daily Maverick.
“It was discussed. We and others raised objections. No final decision,” said someone close to the German delegation in Pretoria.
Another source suggested that despite a general view expressed at the meeting that South Africa should be admitted to the US G20 meetings, the US sherpa had said his government’s decision to exclude SA was “final”.
South Africa had sent a formal request to all G20 countries last week asking them to object to its exclusion from the G20 at the sherpa meeting. Daily Maverick was unable to establish which countries had in the event raised objections.
But a source said the European Union, the African Union, Germany, France, the UK, China, Canada, Brazil “and several others” had all told the US sherpas that South Africa should be in the G20.
“A lot of people around the table were expressing concerns, some more subtly than others,” the source said. “But there was very clear support for having South Africa at the table because everyone said that it's important to include all members, that the G20’s strength lies in its diversity.”
But this source said the US stuck to its contention that South Africa had not been invited to participate in any of the G20 meetings – up to and including the summit in Miami in December next year – because it had handled its own G20 “inappropriately”.
This referred both to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s refusal – in the absence from the summit of any more senior US official – to hand over the G20 presidency at the summit to what South Africa regarded as a relatively junior official, the acting US ambassador in Pretoria, Marc Dillard, as the US embassy had requested.
The source said at this week’s meeting the US sherpa had also said South Africa was not invited because “they were celebrating the leaders’ declaration as a consensual thing. But the US keeps saying that they had objections. And that they felt it was not consensual and they find that inappropriate.”
The source said some other members were still hoping that a way could be found for South Africa to attend from early next year.
They said that the US sherpa had also confirmed that the US would operate without the troika, as was customary. The troika comprises the current, immediate past and next G20 presidents, so South Africa would have been part of the troika.
Instead the US would consult with the 2027 president, the UK, as well as the 2028 president, South Korea, the US sherpa told the meeting.
Before this week’s sherpa meeting, Germany and China had been most vocal in insisting that South Africa should be invited. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz had said he would raise the issue with Donald Trump.
And German ambassador to South Africa Andreas Peschke had told Newzroom Afrika that “we think South Africa needs to be on the table”, adding that Germany would take this up with the US.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Andreas-Peschke.jpg "Andreas Peschke. (Photo: Supplied)")
He added it was important for South Africa to be included not only because it was an important player in its own rights but also because it was the only African nation in the G20 (though the African Union also recently became a member).
China’s foreign ministry also supported South Africa’s continued participation in the G20 before the Washington sherpa meeting. It said South Africa’s hosting of the G20 Summit in Johannesburg last month had been “a full success highly commended by the international community”.
“The G20 has long been committed to solidarity, cooperation and equal-footed consultation. As a founding member of the G20, South Africa attended all the previous summits and has all along played an important role in the group,” it said.
“China supports South Africa in continuing to participate in G20 cooperation. We look forward to working with South Africa and all other G20 members to defend multilateralism, promote world economic growth and improve global economic governance.”
Meanwhile, this week, the full US Senate confirmed Trump’s nominee, Leo Brent Bozell III, of Virginia, to be US ambassador to South Africa. The Senate vote to confirm Bozell as ambassador went on party lines with all 53 Republican senators voting for him and 43 Democrats voting against. Not all Democrats voted.
In his earlier confirmation hearings Bozell had made it clear he would pursue Trump’s contentious issues with South Africa, including advancing Trump’s invitation to Afrikaners “who wish to flee unjust racial discrimination”.
He would also press South Africa to rescind its legislation allowing expropriation of land without compensation (in some circumstances).
He would also “press South Africa to end proceeding against Israel before the International Court of Justice” and would address Pretoria’s supposed drift away from non-alignment towards closer relations with Russia, China and Iran. DM