Scott Bessent skipped the G-20 meeting in South Africa for the second time this year.

Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, is skipping the G-20 finance summit in South Africa for the second time this year.

The weeklong gathering kicked off at the Zimbali resort near Durban Scott’s absence continues a broader boycott by top American officials, one that started with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He was the first to sit out over South Africa’s presidency theme of “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability.”

This snub couldn’t come at a worse time. South Africa is the first African country to host the G-20, and it’s trying to center the talks on debt relief, development, and the priorities of emerging economies.

Instead, the summit is being steamrolled by U.S. trade aggression, as President Donald Trump threatens more tariffs ahead of an August 1 deadline. South Africa’s plans to lead conversations around climate finance and sustainability are being sidelined as Washington plays hardball with BRICS nations.

Trump goes after BRICS, targets Brazil and South Africa

Donald Trump is ramping up his trade war by threatening a 10% tariff on BRICS countries he calls “anti-American.” That includes South Africa, the host. Trump is also going after Brazil, warning of a 50% levy in retaliation for its legal actions against Jair Bolsonaro, the former president who tried to overturn an election he lost. The G-20 isn’t supposed to be a battleground, but Trump is treating it like one.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pushed back publicly after meeting Trump in Rio de Janeiro last week. Ramaphosa said the U.S. leader needs “a greater appreciation of the emergence of various centers of power in the world.” Their exchange followed a tense Oval Office confrontation where Trump accused Ramaphosa’s government of ignoring a “White farmer genocide,” a claim widely debunked.

Ramaphosa is still trying to convince Trump to attend the G-20 leaders’ summit in Johannesburg in November, when South Africa hands over the presidency to the U.S. But hopes are dim that Trump will support any of the African nation’s priorities before then. Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, head of the South African Institute of International Affairs, said: “For a lot of the agenda that has been built up over the last four or five years, it’s not fertile ground next year.”

Bessent’s absence weakens U.S. influence at key summit

With Scott nowhere in sight, the U.S. Treasury’s seat at Zimbali sits empty while finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world meet Thursday and Friday. The timing is brutal for South Africa, which is fighting to keep Africa’s development in focus. But Trump’s agenda has hijacked the summit.

“Africa’s development must remain front and center this year and into the future,” said Ronald Lamola, South Africa’s international relations minister, during a U.N. event in Spain. He warned the world about rising debt-service costs choking progress across the continent. That’s exactly what South Africa hoped to tackle with its G-20 platform, but Washington just isn’t playing ball.

Trump’s chaos has even rattled America’s closest allies. Sanusha Naidu, a research fellow at the Institute for Global Dialogue in Pretoria, said, “The challenge around the G-20 is that you just don’t know what is going to come out of the White House.” She called the U.S. role a disruptive force in international governance, undermining any serious push for global cooperation.

But Washington’s cold shoulder has had one weird consequence: it’s pushing other powers closer to South Africa. After Rubio’s no-show, the European Union openly backed the country’s G-20 goals. Two weeks later, the EU held its first summit with Pretoria since 2018, even after years of bickering.

Still, nobody’s pretending this mess is sustainable. Louw Nel, senior analyst at Oxford Economics Africa, said Trump won’t make the G-20 irrelevant, even if he drags it down right now. “Countries are already starting to look beyond the Trump presidency and know these multilateral institutions will outlive this administration.” But that doesn’t change the current reality: Scott isn’t here, the White House is unpredictable, and the G-20’s African debut is getting buried under American power games.

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