Wars, looming Trump reign set to dominate G-20 summit in Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO – G-20 leaders gather in Brazil on Nov 18 for a G-20 summit set to be dominated by differences over wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and implications of Donald Trump’s White House return.

Security considerations – always high at such meetings – were elevated further after a failed bomb attack late on Nov 13 outside Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia.

Police were probing the

two blasts

as a possible “terrorist act” committed by a Brazilian perpetrator, whose death was the sole casualty.

The summit venue is in Rio de Janeiro, in the city’s stunning bayside museum of modern art, which is the epicentre of a massive police deployment designed to keep the public well away.

Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be using the opportunity to highlight his position as a leader championing Global South issues while also being courted by the West.

That role will be tested in the months and years ahead as Latin America and other regions navigate “America First” policies promised by Donald Trump when he becomes US president in January.

At this G-20, it will be

outgoing President Joe Biden

who will represent the world’s biggest economy, but as a lame duck the other leaders will be looking beyond.

Just before the Rio summit, on Nov 17, Mr Biden will make a stop in Brazil’s Amazon to underline the fight against climate change – another issue that Trump is hostile towards.

Putin absent

The G-20 meet is happening at the same time as the UN’s COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan – and as the world experiences dramatic climate phenomena, including in Brazil where flooding, drought and forest fires have taken heavy tolls.

At the last G-20, in India, the leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.

One invited leader

who declined to come to Rio

is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said his presence could “wreck” the gathering.

Mr Putin denied an International Criminal Court warrant out against him, for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, was a factor in his decision. His foreign minister will represent Russia in Rio.

China’s President Xi Jinping, however, will be attending, and will even extend his stay after the summit to make an official visit to Brasilia on Nov 20.

China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, and the two countries have been touting themselves as mediators to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, so far without success.

That conflict, along with Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, will loom large at the summit.

“We are negotiating with all the countries on the final declaration’s passages about geopolitics… so that we can reach consensual language on those two issues,” Brazil’s chief diplomatic official for the G-20, Mr Mauricio Lyrio, said.

Those conflicts will be “the elephant in the room”, Ms Flavia Loss, international relations specialist at the School of Sociology and Politics of Sao Paulo, said.

But that should not prevent Brazil from finding consensus on issues that it has made priorities under its G-20 presidency, she said, such as the fight against hunger or taxing the world’s super-rich.

Mr Lula, heading up Latin America’s biggest economy, set out his line in May when he said: “A lot of people insist on dividing the world between friends and enemies. But the more vulnerable are not interested in simplistic dichotomies.”

Tax on billionaires

The Rio G-20 summit will open on Nov 18 with Mr Lula officially launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty”.

The initiative aims to rally nations and international bodies to free up financing for that campaign, or to replicate programmes that have previously had success.

And on the issue of taxing billionaires, the G-20 countries already declared a desire to cooperate to bring that about, as set out by their finance ministers who met in Rio in June.

It remained to be seen, though, whether the leaders at the summit would pursue that goal, and on what terms.

Following the summit, Brazil hands over the G-20 presidency to South Africa. AFP