A meeting of foreign ministers from G20 countries will take place in Johannesburg on Thursday, but U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend amid diplomatic tensions between South Africa and the U.S.
Diplomats including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are expected to attend the gathering, while the U.S. will be represented by acting ambassador to South Africa Dana Brown.
The European Union, the United Nations and the African Union, which is part of the G20, will also be in attendance. Rubio snubbed the meeting after an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump stopped foreign aid to the country over a law that the White House said amounts to discrimination against the country’s white minority. The U.S. is also displeased with South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola has said that Rubio’s decision was “not a complete boycott of South Africa’s G20.” He said the U.S. would be represented in Johannesburg this week “in one form or shape or another.” U.S. Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent has also confirmed his will not attend a meeting of G20 finance ministers scheduled to take place in South Africa next week.
Bessent said on the social media platform X that he would not participate in the event because of obligations in Washington. A senior Treasury official will attend in his place, he said. Analysts say that Rubio and Bessent’s absence signalled the U.S was pulling back from the G20 and demonstrated how strained relations are.
“I think if we want to really know what message the US administration is trying to send, you have to know whether the treasury secretary will come next week or not. And if he chooses not to come as well, that’s a quite serious sign,” said political analyst Daniel Bradlow.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to officially open and address the gathering under the theme “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability,” which Rubio has described as a diversity, equality and inclusion framework — one that the new Trump administration vocally opposes.
South Africa will host over 130 working group meetings and 23 ministerial-level meetings this year as part of their G20 presidency, which began in December last year. The U.S. is expected to take over the G20 presidency in 2026 after South Africa’s tenure.
