United States (US) Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in Atlanta, Georgia, today and tomorrow.

The US took over the G20 presidency from South Africa, which hosted the group’s leaders’ summit in Johannesburg last year in November. The US did not attend that summit; at the time South Africa’s presidency said the US “elected not to attend the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Johannesburg out of its own volition”.

In December 2025, Rubio said: “As President Trump has rightly highlighted, the South African government’s appetite for racism and tolerance for violence against its Afrikaner citizens have become embedded as core domestic policies.”

He called South Africa’s G20 presidency “an exercise in spite, division, and radical agendas that have nothing to do with economic growth”. He wrote that South Africa “routinely ignored US objections to consensus communiques and statements”.

“For these reasons, President Trump and the United States will not be extending an invitation to the South African government to participate in the G20 during our presidency,” Rubio wrote.

The State Department said on Monday that the US was “returning the G20 to its core economic mission of driving growth, strengthening economic security, and delivering results for the American people”. It said the US would work with G20 partners to address geopolitical crises contributing to global economic shocks, “including threats to freedom of navigation, energy and food security, and supply chains”.