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LAST UPDATE | 23 Nov 2025
THIS WEEKEND’S G20 summit in Johannesburg was meant to be a chance for South Africa and its allies across the Global South to put forward a cohesive and united front – but political antics elsewhere grabbed the attention of many of the leaders.
The attention began to diverge as soon as news emerged that Donald Trump had a fresh proposal to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Trump – who boycotted the G20 summit – appeared to have decided to go it alone on coming up with a plan to end the war.
The 28-point US plan has been welcomed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pushed back against it.
It would force Ukraine to give up land, cut its army and pledge never to join NATO.
Analysts watching the G20 this weekend questioned what the US president was thinking. Did he believe this was a way to show up the various leaders of global affairs, who talk so much about cooperation, and do what they have failed to do as a group themselves?
Amid the burst of news over the weekend, leaders learned that Trump has given Ukraine until Thursday to decide whether to accept the plan.
That’s when the scramble began.
News spread quickly throughout the Nasrec conference centre on the outskirts of Johannesburg on Saturday that leaders were meeting “informally” to come up with counter-proposals ahead of the tight deadline.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin was there, as Ireland was invited to the summit by South Africa.
Photos released afterwards show the leaders spread out around the room, with a large empty space in the middle.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was beside Friedrich Merz of Germany; France’s Emmanuel Macron was flanked by EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.
At the edge of what appeared to be an impromptu seating arrangement, Micheál Martin was to the right of Canadian president Mark Carney. Another photo has Martin in conversation with Norway leader Jonas Gahr Støre on the Taoiseach’s other side.
The statement that resulted from the meeting seemed carefully chosen in its language. The main point was that the leaders agreed to say that Trump’s plan “required additional work”.
The mood seemed to lift a bit later, as photos show the Taoiseach, Macron and Finland’s Alexander Stubb cracking smiles in the room.
One man who didn’t seem to be enjoying the moment was Starmer, who has often presented himself as a key ally for Ukraine and Zelenskyy in their struggles with the White House over the past year.
Following the meeting, Starmer, Macron, Carney, Martin and other leaders began tweeting messages of support for Ukraine. It was reminiscent of the low point earlier this year when Zelenskyy was belittled in the Oval Office by Trump and JD Vance.
As with then, Ukraine’s embattled leader reposted each message of support, thanking them in turn – a clear sign of how bad Saturday’s news of the US-led peace plan was.
Thank you for your support! https://t.co/n6svog16rd
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 22, 2025
The UK Labour leader held a phone call with Trump today, in which they agreed that they “must work together at this critical moment”.
The next four days will be critical. European leaders have now proposed a radically different peace plan for ending the war, which removes some of the most contentious points from the US-led plan.
Talks are taking place in Geneva between representatives of the US, Ukraine, and European countries and will continue on Monday.
It wasn’t as if Ukraine was entirely off the original G20 agenda though. On Saturday, as leaders spoke, the summit heard repeated calls for peace in the country, along with Gaza and Sudan.
South Africa president Cyril Ramaphosa emphasised this; one of the first calls in his closing address was for the end to all wars.
Speaking to The Journal during a meeting with media today in Johannesburg, Martin said that when Trump’s plan had emerged in the public domain, there was a “speedy response from those members of the coalition of the willing that were present here”.
“But that [focus on Ukraine] didn’t take from the core themes of the summit itself,” he said.
He added that he doesn’t think there’s “that big of a divide between the south and the north” in global terms.
“More importantly, it’s the delivery on how do we do it, the mechanisms of doing it,”he said, referring to using financial systems to improve equality and sustainable development – the goals South Africa was particularly motivated by.
The work of the G20 continued on as western leaders huddled about Ukraine, with South Africa seeking to emphasise what it and its key partners believe are the issues that need to be urgently rectified to help their continent and others.
One was debt reform. It grew into a major theme of the summit, getting more attention than topics like climate change and gender issues.
African countries will have to stump up nearly $89 billion (€77 billion) in debt servicing this year, an amount that is crushing for a continent that has ambitions of proceeding into a new era of development.
In its final declaration – agreed among the members who attended – leaders recognised that a high level of debt is one of the “obstacles to inclusive growth in many developing economies”.
It becomes a constraint on development that further “limits their ability to invest in infrastructure”, the leaders said.
In his comments to media, the Taoiseach pointed to the increased attention on debt restructuring as a “significant win” for South Africa’s presidency.
Elissa Mionle, an analyst with media platform Devrex which covers global development, said it has emerged as a growing issue for nations over the past year.
Elissa Miolene is from Devrex, a media group that covers global development at forums like the G20. She breaks down the focus South Africa has placed on debt restructuring for poorer nations
— Eoghan Dalton (@EoghanDalton) November 23, 2025
(Micheál Martin is among those reckoning that the emphasis was a success for the hosts) pic.twitter.com/H5qLrvRA3t
It’s all the more important for Africa as the continent has the highest concentration of developing countries.
“We’ve really saw over the past several years that the increased burden African countries are facing due to high borrowing costs and the debt that countries take on, inhibits them from paying for education and for healthcare,” Mionle told The Journal.
Ramaphosa appealed to fellow leaders today to urgently tackle debt reform, and to begin boosting climate finance packages to prepare for more carnage brought by the heating planet.
“It is vital for global stability and security, alleviating resource pressures, managing population movements and reducing the risk of conflict,” Ramaphosa said.
In a country where more than three million South Africans do not have access to a basic water supply, and a world where hundreds of millions live without access to energy, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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