South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared the summit in Johannesburg closed by banging a wooden gavel on a block like a judge would, in a G20 tradition. The gavel would normally be handed over to the leader of the next country to hold the rotating presidency, but no U.S. official was there to receive it.
The world’s biggest economy boycotted a summit meant to bring rich and developing nations together over President Donald Trump’s claims that South Africa is violently persecuting its Afrikaner white minority.
The White House said it intended in a last-minute decision for an official from its embassy in South Africa to attend the G20 handover. But South Africa refused that, saying it was an insult for Ramaphosa to hand over to a junior embassy official. In the end, no U.S. delegation was accredited for the summit, according to the South African Foreign Ministry.
South Africa said the handover would happen later, possibly at its foreign ministry. Trump has said the U.S. will hold next year’s summit at his golf club in Doral, Florida.
“This gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year,” Ramaphosa said as he closed the summit, making no reference to the U.S. absence in his speech.
