SA achieves triumph of multilateralism at G20

Trump's boycott of the event only amplified South Africa's stature

- NCO DUBE

THE Johannesburg G20 Summit this past weekend was never going to be ordinary.

It was the first time the world's most powerful economies gathered on African soil. It was the first time the African Union sat as a permanent member of the G20. And it was the first time the summit had to contend with the deliberate absence of the US, led by Donald Trump, who chose to boycott the meeting and lob infantile jabs at South Africa from afar.

What unfolded was a paradox: a summit marked by absence, yet defined by presence. Trump's boycott was meant to diminish the event, but it only amplified South Africa's stature. His attacks were meant to undermine Pretoria's credibility, but they only highlighted Ramaphosa's poise. And his isolationism was meant to fracture multilateralism, but it only strengthened it.

Trump's decision to boycott the summit was framed around baseless accusations that South Africa persecutes its white minority and seizes farms. These claims, recycled from his earlier rhetoric, were deployed as political theatre. They were not grounded in fact, nor in the realities of South Africa's land reform policies. They were designed to inflame, to distract, and to undermine. Trump's refusal to send even a delegation was unprecedented in G20 history. It was accompanied by threats that South Africa should not adopt a declaration in Washington's absence. It was the behaviour of a petulant child, not a statesman.