00:00It's our correspondent Eunice Masson reporting there from Cape Town.
00:03Next, we can bring in Alex Vines, the Africa director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
00:09Good morning and thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
00:12I'd like to have you respond to what Eunice was just saying.
00:15Would you agree that that U.S. boycott isn't going to have much of an impact?
00:20For this particular summit, no.
00:22I mean, it's a massive pity, given the size of the U.S. economy, that President Trump or a very senior delegation are not in at the summit in Johannesburg.
00:34But I do worry about next year.
00:37Even the South African statement that a junior delegation, the charge d'affaires of the United States to South Africa, is not able to symbolically take over the baton is provocative.
00:51And there is a danger, I think, that the United States might not issue visas, not welcome South Africa to the G20 in Florida next year, which would be difficult, I think, for South Africa.
01:05And I think South Africa is going to have to find a way of doing quite a lot of diplomacy after this summit to try and see if there's a way of improving its bilateral relationship with the United States, however difficult that's going to be.
01:19And what do you make of the tension between South Africa and the U.S. and Trump's reasons for not attending this summit?
01:28Well, they're ideological.
01:29We saw roots of them under the first Trump administration.
01:33But I had never imagined they would get to the freezing of relations almost that we are now.
01:41The South Africans have tried to offer various ways to find a pathway forward, including suggesting that they will buy a lot of energy, particularly gas from the United States, and offer what Mr. Estelle had mentioned, strategic and critical minerals and get deals there.
02:00They're looking for a deal with Mr. Trump.
02:02But unlike other disputes, this one does seem to be ideological, and it's going to be a lot more tricky, I think, for South Africa to find a route forward with the United States.
02:13Do you think that we could end up seeing some sort of standoff between the two countries during the G20, either over the declaration that the U.S. doesn't want to happen without its participation or the handing over of the presidency?
02:25Well, under Trump, one, there were ways of working around the United States and the rest of the G20 did find consensus.
02:38And so I actually this time last year, I'd advise the South Africans that that might be the way they forward for them when they took consultation about their presidency.
02:47But nobody expected it to be such a frosty relationship as it is right now, that the declaration will go ahead and other countries will sign up to it.
03:00I think the problem lies going forward with the G20 presidency moving to the United States next year and how South Africa will fit into this.
03:11Remember, Mr. Trump has already said a few weeks ago that he thought that South Africa shouldn't be in the G20.
03:16Now, he can't expel unilaterally South Africa and there won't be consensus in the G20 for that.
03:24But issuing a visa could become a significant problem for South African officials next year if they wanted to attend the G20 summit.
03:35Can you talk maybe a bit more about South Africa's place in the G20 and what its priorities are for this summit?
03:40Yes, I mean, it's been a very progressive program of the South Africa during its presidency, particularly focusing on things like that that are really pertinent globally, like like like global inequality, but also debt and debt sustainability.
03:58The South African presidency has commissioned a couple of excellent reports in this regard of trying to think of ways forward.
04:07There was continuity between the Brazilian presidency of the G20 that was last year and the South African one this year.
04:15And so there was some cohesion there.
04:16And it is a pity that this dispute with with the United States is overshadowing this G20 summit, which is also historic.
04:25It's the first time the G20 meets on African soil.
04:29It's also the first time that the African Union, the continental body, is part of a full is a full member of African of a G20 summit, too.
04:38So there's history being made here.
04:41South Africa's presidency is going to mark the end of a cycle of kind of global South countries leading the G20.
04:47We also had Brazil, India and Indonesia before South Africa.
04:51Have the past few years sort of brought changes to the priorities of the G20 with all these presidencies from the global South?
04:58Well, definitely the issues of debt sustainability and particularly global inequality, which are so pertinent and even in industrialized countries, inequality.
05:09My own country, United Kingdom, look across Europe.
05:12These are big issues that should be on a global platform.
05:16I mean, the G20 comes out of a financial crisis in Asia in 1999.
05:21It's mandate has broadened.
05:24That does make making reaching consensus a lot more difficult.
05:29But I do think that the India, Brazil, South Africa triangle has been a good experience for G20.
05:40But next year, obviously, is going to be very different under Trump administration and hosted in Florida.
05:47This summit also comes as UN climate negotiations are wrapping up in Brazil.
05:53Do you think that more progress could also be made on those issues at the G20?
05:58I mean, it's massively one of the biggest threat to humanity, global change and climate change.
06:08And yes, absolutely, this is something that has been part of the South African G20 agenda, including on how to get a just energy transition, how to get more green energy.
06:21Obviously, it's a complicated issue for South Africa because it's still reliant on coal, for example.
06:25So it's a particularly dependent country on fossil fuel still for its energy security and has had some very significant energy problems over the over the recent past.
06:38But again, I think this is obviously an issue that's not going to be discussed significantly next year in the G20.
06:47But there will be the G7 presidency of France next year, and France is also planning a big India-Africas, a France-Africa summit in Kenya, which is also designed to draw in not only the African continent, but get input from the global south into the G7 agenda.
07:10So there will be other fora for it.
07:11Yeah, lots of summits to look forward to, starting with today's G20.
07:15Alex Vines, thank you again so much for your analysis today.
07:18That's Alex Vines, the Africa director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
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