US top diplomat to boycott G20 foreign ministers meeting in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

As South Africa prepares to host foreign ministers from the G20 countries, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he would not be attending.

Relations between Pretoria and Washington have been strained under President Donald Trump's new administration.

Rubio criticised the country’s policies as “anti-American”.

It is the first meeting of foreign ministers from the G20 group of major economies since South Africa took over its presidency in December last year.

“The G20 is a voluntary membership grouping. So if an important country like the United States looks like it's not participating, that's a negative sign," said Professor Daniel Bradlow, a senior research fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria.

Last week, Trump cut aid and assistance to South Africa saying Afrikaners, who are descendants of mainly Dutch colonial settlers, were being targeted by a new law that allows the government to expropriate private land.

Bradlow said major powers such as China would likely look to fill any vacuum left by the United States in the multilateral grouping, but suggested other outcomes were possible too.

"There are a number of other countries that are middle powers, including South Africa, that could say this is an opportunity to start rethinking the way the world is governed and, how we deal with international affairs and do it in a way that's more responsive to the needs of all countries,” he said.

The G20 is made up of 19 countries representing some of the world's largest economies, as well as the EU.

Analysts say Rubio's absence represents the Trump administration's indifference to multilateral bodies, but Rubio has also directly rejected South Africa's priorities for its G20 presidency.

South Africa is the first African nation to hold the G20 presidency and its theme for the grouping this year is “solidarity, equality, sustainability".

It says it will use its position to advance the interests of poorer countries, especially with regards to debt refinancing and helping developing nations mitigate the impacts of climate change.