Eoghan Dalton Reports from Johannesburg

A ROW BETWEEN the Trump administration and South Africa has flared up again on the eve of the first ever G20 summit being hosted on African soil.

The US has said it will be boycotting the summit due to what President Donald Trump has called South Africa’s “anti-American” goals for the summit.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin – who is representing Ireland in its debut appearance at the summit – has today played down concerns that the split between the hosts and one of the major players may have an impact on the final statement agreed by leaders.

The boycott is viewed as all the more awkward as the US is due to formally recognised as next year’s hosts in a handover ceremony on Sunday.

In its first time hosting the gathering of leading world economies, South Africa is pursuing a theme of ‘Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability’.

Some South African media are reporting today that its president Cyril Ramaphosa has said the US may get involved after all – but this has been rubbished by the White House.

Its press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Ramaphosa was “running his mouth” by making the claim about US plans.

However, the US is reportedly set to send a delegation to take place in Sunday’s handover ceremony.

South Africa's daily newspaper The Star carried Ramaphosa's comments on its front page. EOGHAN DALTON / THE JOURNAL EOGHAN DALTON / THE JOURNAL / THE JOURNAL

Earlier this year, Trump ambushed President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, playing a video in which he alleged a campaign against white farmers by the post-apartheid government.

Trump has cited debunked claims of white Afrikaners being systematically “killed and slaughtered” in South Africa as his reason for skipping the gathering this weekend.

Taoiseach in Johannesburg

Speaking to reporters today in Johannesburg, the Taoiseach warned that cooperation among the world’s governments on global aims around sustainability “appeared to be weakening” in the face of “geopolitical turbulence and conflict and war”.

“Therefore events like this are extremely important to reassert the importance of multilateralism and multilateral bodies,” Martin said.

Taoiseach in Johannesburg says commitment to sustainability in global development “appears to be weakening”, making this weekend’s G20 summit all the more important.

He’s confident states will be able to agree a group statement on Sunday despite the US boycott @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/Mk3xgvWf50

— Eoghan Dalton (@EoghanDalton) November 21, 2025

Martin said that the G20 wasn’t just a “huge networking opportunity” for Ireland, but was more importantly a chance to contribute to ensuring that cooperation between multiple governments doesn’t fall by the wayside.

Martin didn’t refer to Trump but the US during his second term is widely viewed as shunning global agreements and preferring direct negotiations with countries to achieve its aims.

This has previously been seen in the US withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and from its decline to attend the COP climate talks held in recent weeks.

Expressing confidence that there will be a declaration at the end of the summit, Martin said he believes it will have “substantial” goals.

“I do believe there will be a declaration or a statement at the end of this summer, which will be quite substantial, which will cover a wide range of issues and areas where progress has been made,” Martin said.

“There has been a lot of constructive inputs not used from Ireland, as I would say, to a lot of the agenda items, and particularly on the development agenda.”

He added that is meeting the head of the African Development Bank today and with head of the African Union – a counterpart to the EU bloc.

Also on the Taoiseach’s schedule for today are meetings with the leaders of Australia, Singapore and Indonesia.