US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who has decided to skip the Group of Twenty (G20) foreign ministers’ meeting in SA, will be represented by his deputy chief of mission at the US embassy, Dana Brown.
Rubio’s decision not to attend the meeting comes amid an escalating diplomatic spat between his country and SA.
He announced two weeks ago that he would skip the meeting, accusing SA of being anti-America. He also said he disagreed with SA’s G20 theme: “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability”.
Rubio’s actions are in line with the Trump administration’s antagonistic foreign policy outlook on SA. US President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order halting funding to various initiatives helping the poor and HIV patients.
He erroneously claimed there were mass killings of white Afrikaner farmers and that the Expropriation Act, which President Cyril Ramaphosa recently signed into law, was meant to dispossess them. He also claimed there was a flagrant abuse and violation of the human rights of Afrikaners.
The SA government has denied the allegations saying they will continue to use available diplomatic channels to engage the US.
“Senior diplomat and US chargé d’affaires to SA Dana Brown will attend the G20 foreign ministerial meeting as secretary Marco Rubio’s representative. These meetings are an opportunity to ensure that global economic co-operation and investment serve America’s priorities,” a US embassy official said in emailed responses.
Brown was appointed to the US embassy in August 2024, shortly before the resignation of Reuben Brigety as ambassador. The Trump administration has not yet replaced Brigety.
SA is still keen to mend relations with the US, its second-largest trading partner. So far trade remains unaffected by Trump’s moves but the looming 25% reciprocal tariffs that will be imposed by the US on its trading partners is expected by organised business to affect SA’s steel and aluminium industries.
SA is also looking to use the foreign ministers meeting and next week’s meetings of G20 finance and central banks to show that despite Trump’s actions, the country was not isolated. The EU, China and Canada have separately expressed support for SA’s G20 presidency after Trump’s actions.
Challenges for the SA presidency include the US opposition to the multilateral climate measures, green industrialisation and the reform of the World Trade Organisation which all form part of SA’s objectives, said department of trade, industry & competition director Sudhir Sooklal.
He is also the department’s leader on trade and investment within the G20.
“One of the biggest difficulties we’re going to face during our presidency is what I would call a curveball that we are now having to deal with, which is the US and fact that they are upending everything that we know as the multilateral trading system, as well as the global economic arena,” Sooklal said.
He was speaking on Tuesday at the G20 programme organised by the Gauteng government. Gauteng will host the G20 leaders summit in November.
“What we’re seeing increasingly is unilateral measures by the developed countries. The use of [the] carbon border adjustment mechanism … is the most prominent example of unilateral measures which have huge implications for developing countries, but particularly for what you may call a small, open economy like SA. It will significantly affect our exports to the EU and other markets.”
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