How Trump’s Redlines Have Upended the G20 Summit in South Africa

Using the word “transition” in a document about the need to adopt clean energy sources was a nonstarter for Trump administration officials at a Group of 20 meeting this year, said Thabang Audat, the chief director of energy planning in South Africa’s electricity ministry.

In a meeting about global health, U.S. officials objected to the use of terms like “equity” and “universal health care,” according to Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, who was in the room.

The meetings were held in preparation for the annual G20 summit, when leaders of the world’s largest economies gather with the hope of releasing a joint declaration laying out shared ambitions on issues like the economy and climate change. But on many topics, the Trump administration may be making that impossible.

Vice President JD Vance was scheduled to represent the administration at this year’s summit, set to take place next weekend in South Africa, the first African nation to host the group. But President Trump last week abruptly said the United States would boycott, and no U.S. officials would attend. “It is a total disgrace that the G20 will be held in South Africa,” he said, citing false allegations that white South Africans were being killed en masse.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa responded curtly on Wednesday: “Their loss.”

In interviews with The New York Times, more than a dozen participating G20 officials said the United States had spent much of the year drawing red lines, skipping working meetings and refusing to negotiate in the lead-up to the final gathering in Johannesburg. The moves, they said, put into stark relief Mr. Trump’s aggressive foreign policy and distaste for multilateralism, compromise and anything he considers political correctness.

“This is not at all normal,” said Michelle Gavin, a former American diplomat in Africa. “It’s petulant and ultimately self-defeating. What we’re doing is losing an opportunity to influence the international discourse.”