There are several readouts of events at the Group of Seven (G7) meeting (minus the excluded Russia) in Alberta, Canada, this week. But regardless of the version, SA, which was invited to the elite gathering, should take serious note as it prepares to host the Group of 20 (G20) summit in November.
Three explanations are doing the rounds as to US President Donald Trump’s abrupt departure from the town of Kananaskis on Monday. First, to attend to the escalating conflict in the Middle East after the exchange of air fire between Israel and Iran; second, because he did not like the wording of the communique that would have been issued at the end of the summit; and third, because Canadian Prime Minister Make Carney made it clear his country is not for sale.
None of these has anything to do with SA directly as an attendee. What does matter, however, is that Trump left in haste. In all likelihood, he knew about Israel’s impending attack on Iran. As the US’s foremost ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could not — and would not — have launched such a strike without US knowledge or approval.
A surprise attack on Iran would place serious strain on the Tel Aviv-Washington friendship. After all, this occurred in the midst of talks to undo the Tehran theocracy’s growing nuclear capability. For weeks, Trump has been positioning such a disarmament as both inevitable and imminent; something for which he would have been prepared to skip the G7 summit as part of his “Make America great again” mantra.
Without any dramatic developments back home or in the Middle East, either the second or third suppositions must have prompted his unceremonious exit from Canada; that is, his disagreement with the text to be issued at the summit (a call for mutual de-escalation), or a grudge against Carney.
Both of those have attendant complications and entanglements for SA come the G20 summit.
It seems SA was treated decently in the recent show at the Oval Office, though little was achieved. But since then President Cyril Ramaphosa has sought to snatch victory from the jaws of the White House ambush.
No guarantee
The presidency has positioned its earlier mission to the US as a success in that Trump did not storm off, warning he would refuse to take the G20 chair from SA. By any accounts that would be a monumental disaster — especially if it were to come from the leader of the free world.
Yet there is no guarantee that might not happen as evidenced by events in Canada. Moreover, a partial attendance is as bad as non-attendance and amounts to what has hitherto occurred: attendance by junior officials.
Pretoria needs to carefully recheck its notes from the Oval Office, assuming it did take some. Trump’s gripes with SA were: its relationships with Iran and China; its relationship and place in the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA) partnership and its views on de-dollarisation.
And then there is the Israel-Palestine issue, in abeyance for now.
Assuming the third readout is accurate, Pretoria should be doing all it can to ensure there is not another — and perhaps even more embarrassing — walkout by Trump come November. Canada was Carney’s show, but Ramaphosa would do well to take careful notes on how matters played out. That way he could avoid the dread of handing the G20 presidency to an empty chair and the attendant humiliation.
A call to Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden might be in order — perhaps even Barack Obama, whom Trump succeeded in 2016.
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