America wants G20 on a leash
America wants G20 on a leash
Washington is narrowing a once-broader forum into a tool for its own priorities, sidelining development, climate and the Global South
The US presidency has shrunk the G20 agenda, which had been broadened under the earlier four presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa, to reflect the priorities not only of the G7 but also the developing world.
If the G7 nations had felt that they could on their own handle the global fall-out of the 2008 financial crisis they would have not felt the need to elevate the G20, which includes key emerging economies, from a routine meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors to a summit of heads of states and governments. From that perspective, these powers were compelled to include the interests and priorities of those emerging economies in the G20 agenda.
The G20 concept is thus rooted in a more cooperative multilateral approach to address multiple global challenges. The G20 agenda cannot be aligned with US priorities alone.
The US State Department had announced beforehand its intention to assert its priorities – limiting regulatory barriers to investment and encouraging transparent governance to foster global competitiveness, focusing on energy independence, reliable energy access, resilient supply chains, and safe navigation through critical international waterways (such as the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab), accelerating digital advancement and artificial intelligence (AI) policies while protecting security, privacy, and intellectual property, refocusing the G20 on its core economic mandate, addressing global supply chain resilience, trade consensus, critical minerals, and geopolitical disruptions affecting markets.
These are no doubt important issues to address collectively, but they are not the only ones.
The contrast between the Chair’s statement on the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting issued by India in 2023 and the Chair’s statement issued under the US presidency is illuminating.
In 2023, the issues covered were insufficient progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, economic slowdown, debt distress, uneven pandemic recovery, growing poverty and inequality, food and energy insecurity, and global supply chain disruptions aggravated by geopolitical tensions and conflicts.
Strengthening multilateralism, making global governance more representative, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, global health, global skill mapping, as well as gender equality and women’s empowerment were among the other issues covered.
Importantly, there was an affirmation that the rules-based, non-discriminatory, multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core, was indispensable to advancing shared objectives.
The steadfast commitments of the G20 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to tackle climate change though the full and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement and its temperature goal, reflecting equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities was affirmed too. So was strengthening key aspects of global health architecture, with the leading and coordination role of the WHO. The Multilateral Development Banks were asked to mobilize and provide additional financing within their mandates to support the achievement of the SDGs.
Read more The US Chair’s statement talks of taking the G20 back to basics. These basics, which the organization had ostensibly departed from, cannot be defined unilaterally by one member. The priorities of not only the developing countries but also of other G7 countries have been ignored.
The paragraph in the US statement referring to rising energy costs glosses over Washington’s own role in driving them higher. By sanctioning Russian oil and gas, and then worsening the situation through its attack on Iran, the US has contributed directly to disruptions in the flow o
