FOREIGN AFFAIRS: SA has moved on from Trump’s G20 summit snub, says Ambassador Roelf Meyer

The South African government is no longer troubled about not being invited to the US G20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December, says South Africa’s ambassador to the US, Roelf Meyer.

South Africa had moved on and was already talking to next year’s G20 host, the UK, Meyer told the Cape Town Press Club on Monday, 26 October. He added that South Africa would attend the B20 summit in Washington, DC, in November.

He was responding to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s call for the US to invite SA to the Miami summit. SA is a founding member of the G20, but US President Donald Trump boycotted SA’s G20 last year and then disinvited SA from the US G20 this year.

In his Press Club address, Meyer largely confined himself to discussing his new political memoir, written with journalist Anneliese Burgess. It deals mainly with his pre-ambassadorial career, focusing on his role in helping negotiate South Africa’s path to democracy and then applying that experience to help other troubled nations negotiate their own transitions.

However, when pressed by a German journalist on whether Merz’s call for South Africa to be invited to the Miami G20 summit had aided relations with Washington, Meyer offered a succinct response: no.

“But I don’t think it’s troubling the South African government too much at this stage,” he added.

Initially, he said, it had been seen as a stumbling block in the relationship.

“But in the meantime we are moving on. And next year there is a new host for the G20, and I think conversations with the new host have already started.”

He added that SA had been invited to the summit of the B20 – the business side of the G20 – which members of the SA embassy in the US and SA business leaders would attend. He noted the B20 was organised by US businesses and not the US government.

He added that SA would also participate in other G20 side events such as on culture.

“We are not spending too much time on the actual question of the G20 at this stage.”

Meyer was asked if he thought there was any chance of fixing the relationship with the US.

“You’re touching on a sensitive nerve,” he replied, adding that it was important to have a good relationship with the US, “because it’s the biggest economy on Earth”.

Meyer said the US was the country he had visited most, about 40 times over more than 40 years. He had been to around 35 of the 50 US states.

“I know the country. So in every respect, in every part of my knowledge about the United States, it matters that we have good relations.”

Unfortunately, he said, relations were now strained. 

“I have a job to do, and that is to make sure that we restore the relationship in the best possible way as quickly as we can.”

That included political relations and trade relations, which were continuing “most of the time… More than 600 companies are doing business in SA to our benefit because it provides jobs.”

He stated that his primary goal was to create jobs in South Africa by repairing and strengthening diplomatic and economic ties with Washington

“We can’t go on like this. And whether there is persuasion necessarily on the US side or on the South African side, I will be the messenger to try to make it happen.”

Meyer declined to directly answer a question about whether he thought SA was “the political football or the prize” for the US.

“But what’s at stake? It’s the national interest of South Africa.”

SA was “not the only one at the receiving end. I had a long conversation with my Canadian colleague in Washington. And you can imagine how that conversation went.”

Canada has also had a rocky relationship with the Trump administration, including threats by Trump to annex it. DM