G20 summit in South Africa ends with glaring absence of US

The Group of 20 summit in South Africa ended on Sunday with the glaring absence of the United States -- the next country to lead the bloc-after the Trump administration boycotted the two days of talks involving leaders of the world's richest and top developing economies.

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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the summit in Johannesburg closed by banging a wooden gavel on a block like a judge would, in a G20 tradition. The gavel would normally be handed over to the leader of the next country to hold the rotating presidency, but no US official was there to receive it.

The world’s biggest economy boycotted a summit meant to bring rich and developing nations together over President Donald Trump's claims that South Africa is violently persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.

The White House said it intended in a last-minute decision for an official from its embassy in South Africa to attend the G20 handover. But South Africa refused that, saying it was an insult for Ramaphosa to hand over to a junior embassy official. In the end, no US delegation was accredited for the summit, according to the South African Foreign Ministry.

South Africa said the handover would happen later, possibly at its foreign ministry. Trump has said the US will hold next year’s summit at his golf club in Doral, Florida. “This gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year,” Ramaphosa said as he closed the summit, making no reference to the US absence in his speech.