Trump blocks SA from 1st G20 Sherpas meeting

South Africa has been excluded from the first G20 Sherpas meeting under US President Donald Trump’s new G20 presidency, breaking with the consensus-based tradition that has guided the grouping since its formation.

Professor Patrick Bond of the University of Johannesburg says the Trump administration is using its power as host to block South Africa’s participation, fuelled in part by longstanding false claims of human-rights abuses against Afrikaners.

He argues this unilateral exclusion is possible because the US controls visas and access to the meetings, but stresses that South Africa’s partners (from Germany to India and the broader BRICS bloc) could push back if there was sufficient political will.

Bond adds that the move reflects Trump’s broader hostility to multilateralism, warning that Washington may also ignore core G20 agenda items championed by South Africa and other middle-income countries, including climate finance, global taxation proposals and African debt relief.

He says the episode highlights the limits of 'appeasement' diplomacy and calls for firmer resistance from countries committed to global cooperation.

"What we really should be arguing, I think, is that the US does not belong; it does not have the standing to host a G20 that is aimed at multilateral strengthening because of Donald Trump's imminent invasion of Venezuela. He's blowing up 21 boats and killing 80 people, plus numerous ways in which we saw Trump walking out of the climate summit, the World Health Organisation, wrecking world trade, engaging in, again, more genocidal support for Israel and many other geopolitical violations of what a good host should be doing. I think we should twist the plot a bit.

“I mean, it's a very tricky thing when you've got a series of imperialists and let me say sub-imperialist economies, and right now, appeasement has been the watchword."

To listen to Bond in conversation with CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit, click below: