Overview
- Leaders meet in Johannesburg on 22–23 November for the first G20 held in Africa, with Pretoria centering debt relief, financial reform, a just energy transition, food security and inequality as a primary agenda item.
- President Donald Trump will not attend and has argued South Africa should not be in the G20, and South African officials say it is still unclear whether an absent U.S. will endorse a leaders’ declaration.
- Beijing plans to send its premier rather than President Xi, reducing top‑level representation from two major powers at the summit.
- South Africa’s Anil Sooklal says the forum will remain resilient and substantive with 18 countries and two regional bodies at the table, and notes the U.S. automatically assumes the G20 chair on December 1 despite any symbolic gavel handover.
- Senior U.S. officials signal plans to narrow the agenda to core economic issues next year, a shift development economist Jayati Ghosh warns could diminish the G20’s relevance for the Global South.