South African president Cyril Ramaphosa had pulled out all the stops with an ambitious agenda, an intensive work programme with a very specific political orientation. For him, as he said in his closing address, the very fact that the G20 was being hosted on African soil represented a chance to reorient priorities towards the Global South. Media reports from the US in the past week have revealed the extent of its administration’s strategy to undercut the South African summit. At the end of each summit the outgoing G20 president publicly hands over the reins to the incoming president. It should come as no surprise that next year’s G20 will take place in President Trump’s own golf resort in Florida.
