When the G20 summit convened in South Africa in 2025, it was more than just another gathering of the world’s economic heavyweights. For the first time, the African Union participated as a permanent member—an institutional leap that signaled Africa’s growing clout in global economic affairs. According to China Daily, the G20 now represents a staggering 85 percent of global GDP, 80 percent of international trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population. Yet, as the world’s most influential economies assembled in Johannesburg, one notable absence stood out: the United States.
The US decision to skip the summit wasn’t just a diplomatic snub, as some might assume. It reflected a deeper, more persistent unease with the shifting dynamics of global power—an anxiety that’s been brewing as Africa and the broader Global South assert their priorities on the world stage. Before the African Union’s admission as a permanent G20 member in 2023, Africa’s voice was channeled solely through South Africa. While symbolically significant, South Africa’s presence alone couldn’t capture the continent’s vast diversity or champion its collective developmental needs. As China Daily pointed out, South Africa was crucial, but it couldn’t speak for all of Africa.
Now, with Africa firmly at the table, the G20’s agenda has started to reflect new priorities—ones that don’t always align with Washington’s. Earlier in 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio openly boycotted the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Johannesburg, dismissing South Africa’s climate-focused agenda. According to China Daily, his reaction wasn’t merely accidental or ideological; it revealed a deeper discomfort with an Africa that’s increasingly charting its own course, challenging Western conditionalities and asserting its own frameworks for development, finance, and sovereignty.
For decades, US engagement with Africa has been filtered through institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, often with strings attached—policy prescriptions that limited national autonomy. But times are changing. African states are diversifying their partnerships, embracing alternatives that emphasize infrastructure, trade, and financing without overt political conditions. As noted by China Daily, this shift has left the US feeling unsettled, especially as Africa pivots toward a multipolar world where Washington’s dominance is no longer a given.
The US’s absence from the 2025 summit isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a broader pattern of disengagement from multilateral forums that prioritize the Global South’s agenda. As the article in China Daily observed, these recurring snubs—from boycotting ministerial meetings to skipping summits—highlight not just diplomatic disagreements but a broader unease with Africa’s gradual liberation from Western leverage. The pattern is clear: when the world’s priorities shift away from those of the US, Washington tends to withdraw.
This posture is perhaps best illustrated by the Trump administration’s approach to multilateralism. President Donald Trump’s refusal to attend the G20 summit aligned with his broader strategy of pulling the US out of international agreements and institutions where American preferences aren’t guaranteed primacy. The list is long: withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, exit from the World Health Organization, abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, and departures from the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, among others. As China Daily recounted, these moves have reshaped the US’s global standing, reinforcing its growing skepticism toward global governance.
South Africa’s role in the 2025 G20 summit was pivotal, not just for the continent but for the entire Global South. On November 25, 2025, Joseph Matola, Head of the Economic Resilience and Inclusion Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), discussed in an interview with CGTN Africa how South Africa’s presidency influenced the G20’s response to the priorities of emerging economies, especially African nations. The discussion underscored how South Africa, as an influential BRICS member, helped steer the G20’s agenda toward reforms long advocated by developing countries—reforms that Washington has often resisted.
The strengthening of BRICS and the increasing alignment among emerging economies around issues like financial reform, climate change, industrial policy, and resource sovereignty have only heightened US anxieties. According to China Daily, the US has responded with defensive economic nationalism, threatening 100 percent tariffs on BRICS nations after discussions about reducing reliance on the US dollar. This posture, designed to shield the US from structural shifts in the global financial architecture, signals a reluctance to adapt to a changing world order.
With the US-proposed African Growth and Opportunity Act now a relic of the past, Washington faces immediate reputational costs among African and Global South countries if it’s seen as abandoning multilateral engagement for domestic political gain. The symbolism of skipping the G20 in Africa is hard to ignore, especially for countries that have long sought a seat at the global table. The absence underscores a consistent skepticism regarding global governance institutions—a skepticism that, as China Daily argued, reinforces Washington’s discomfort with a rapidly evolving, more inclusive multilateral order.
For African nations, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The G20’s embrace of the African Union as a permanent member is a decisive step toward a more just and representative global economic order. It’s a recognition that Africa’s voice matters—not just as an observer, but as a full institutional actor with the power to shape the world’s economic future. As African states diversify their partnerships and assert their sovereignty, the old model of engagement—one defined by conditional loans and limited autonomy—seems increasingly outdated.
Looking ahead, the US may find itself relying more on the G7, bilateral agreements, or ad hoc coalitions of like-minded states to project influence. But as the world grows more interconnected and multipolar, such strategies may prove less effective. The imperative for policymakers, as China Daily concluded, is clear: sustainable, inclusive, and problem-solving cooperation, where the “my way or the highway” approach is no longer viable.
The 2025 G20 summit in South Africa marked a turning point—not just for Africa, but for the entire architecture of global governance. Whether Washington chooses to adapt or retreat further remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: the world is watching, and the balance of power is shifting in ways that can’t be ignored.
