The News
The G20 summit opens in Rio de Janeiro Monday, with its agenda dominated more by who is not in attendance than who is. US President-elect Donald Trump’s impending return to office, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and stalled climate negotiations at COP29 in Baku top the issues being discussed.
Yet the bloc’s members “have never appeared further apart, or less conversant in the same language,” Politico said. Argentina’s President Javier Milei has stated his intention to not sign on to a global anti-hunger initiative to be launched at the summit, and to block a joint communiqué because he objects to statements about taxing the super-rich and gender equality, the Financial Times wrote.
Meanwhile, host Brazil’s decision to hew closer to Beijing and Moscow — as well as the Brazilian first lady’s use of an expletive against Trump backer Elon Musk on the eve of the summit — have undermined its ambitions to place itself “at the center of the world,” Le Monde said.
SIGNALS
“Brazil is back!” president tells G20, but US overshadows summit
Since his reelection in 2022, Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has sought to position his country as a leader on the world stage, and the G20 summit is an opportunity to deliver on that mission, Le Monde wrote. But US President-elect Donald Trump has “overshadowed” Lula’s ambitions: “The real topic is Trump’s arrival,” one European diplomat told Politico, adding that the US’ likely isolationist turn under Trump could both leave a power vacuum and irrevocably divide the bloc: The G20 “could become a cacophonic echo chamber of the different blocs, rife with rumors, with everyone just listening to his own voice.”
In Brazil, China moves into the limelight
In the potential vacuum left by the US, China is primed to take on the mantle. Yet it is also “possible that the Chinese will try to kill off the G20,” a former French ambassador told Politico, because it isn’t as high a priority as the Beijing-Washington relationship, the G7, and BRICS. Some leaders are moving with the tide: Brazil is expected to sign a trade agreement with China during the summit, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer plans to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping — the first time a UK prime minister and Xi have met in six years — with Starmer stating that he is looking for a “sensible and pragmatic engagement.”