G20 in Johannesburg: Trump Boycotts Summit as Xi and Putin Are Also Absent — What to Watch

Leaders from the Group of 20 (G20) are meeting in Johannesburg this weekend for the first leaders' summit held on African soil, but several high-profile absences have already reshaped expectations. U.S. President Donald Trump announced a personal boycott of the talks over his disputed claims that South Africa is persecuting Afrikaner farmers. China’s Xi Jinping also will not attend, and Russia will be represented only by a low-level delegation because of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin.

Why the U.S. is boycotting

Trump has alleged that white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa are being killed and their land seized, and he said South Africa should not host the summit. South African officials and many observers — including some Afrikaners — have rejected those claims as inaccurate. The United States will assume the rotating G20 presidency after South Africa; a U.S. Embassy representative will attend the formal handover ceremony at the end of the summit despite the broader boycott.

What South Africa wants to achieve

As host and current president of the G20, South Africa set an agenda focused on issues that disproportionately affect poorer nations: climate adaptation and disaster relief, financing the transition to green energy, relief for heavily indebted countries and global inequality. The government has proposed creating an independent international panel on global wealth inequality, modeled on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, following a report led by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz that described an "inequality emergency."

Attendance and notable absences

Besides Trump and Xi, other absences and low-level delegations include Russian representation led by Maxim Oreshkin due to Putin’s ICC warrant. China is sending a delegation headed by Premier Li Qiang. Argentina’s President Javier Milei has signaled he will skip the summit in solidarity with Trump. European leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Britain’s Keir Starmer have confirmed they will attend.

Diplomacy, protests and the bigger picture

The G20 provides a forum for closed-door bilateral meetings and for shaping global economic policy, but it lacks a permanent secretariat or binding enforcement mechanisms. Summit discussions are expected to include trade tensions stemming from recent tariffs and the broader impact of geopolitical divisions between major powers. As usual, the gathering has drawn protests and a counter-summit by groups critical of global economic inequality and elite influence.

What this means

Observers warn that the absence of the leaders of the world's two largest economies could blunt the summit’s impact and make consensus on contentious issues harder to reach. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa warned that boycotting multilateral forums is self-defeating: "If you boycott an event or a process, you are the greatest loser because the show will go on." Nonetheless, the meeting still offers an opportunity for progress on climate financing, debt relief and proposals to tackle global inequality.