The White House has said South Africa was refusing to facilitate a smooth transition of its presidency of the Group of 20 major economies to the US, after the South African Foreign Ministry said it would hand over the presidency to the US on "an appropriate level" and after the G20 issued a declaration on the climate crisis over US objections.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said on Saturday that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had pushed to issue a G20 leaders' declaration addressing the climate crisis and other global challenges "despite consistent and robust US objections."
She said US President Donald Trump looked forward to "restoring legitimacy to the G20 in the US' 2026 host year."
Earlier, South Africa's Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told a news conference on the sidelines of the summit that the US wanted to implement the handover through the charge d'affaires of its embassy in South Africa.
He stressed that the South African Foreign Ministry (Department of International Relations & Cooperation, or DIRCO) wants to "differentiate between the handover and the deliberations that are currently happening" at the summit that many leaders and their appropriately-designated officials attended.
'Properly designated'
Lamola explained that the handover must happen at the head of state level, or at least a minister who "is properly designated by the president of the United States of America."
"So now that they have assigned a charge, we've said DIRCO has equivalent officials of the charge, hence … we will do the handover… at DIRCO offices anytime from Monday," he announced.
Lamola added that this "cannot in any way strain relations," since it will be done at an appropriate level.
"We will accord them the equivalent respect by assuring that the person … who does the handover is an appropriate, equal, equivalent of the charge, he said. The only thing we said is that our president cannot hand over to a charge d'affaires in the leaders' summit attended by so many heads of state."
Relations between Washington and Pretoria have plunged to their lowest over disagreements on both foreign and domestic policies.
Established in 1999, the G20 comprises 19 countries and two regional bodies – the EU and the African Union.
