It was inevitable that Donald Trump’s un-diplomatic positions would disrupt as tightly-oiled mechanics as International Summits. France, which is hosting this year’s G7, often described as the club of wealthy and democratic countries, is experiencing the painful consequences.
The G7 Summit is taking place in à Evan this year, from June 15 to 17, under French presidency, and the Elysée announced yesterday to involve four countries representative of world regions as “partners”: India, South Korea, Brazil, and Kenya.
Shortly after this announcement, South Africa denounced American pressures that led to the cancellation of an invitation to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. “We are told that the Americans threatened to boycott the G7 summit if South Africa were invited,” said the spokesperson for the South African presidency.
South Africa is the continent’s leading economy, and Cyril Ramaphosa has been France’s privileged partner in many international initiatives, from vaccines during Covid to the Paris Summit on development financing. He had notably participated in the previous G7 in France in 2019 in Biarritz. His absence was surprising, especially since France is organizing a major summit in May in Kenya. The South African president chose to make this matter public, revealing the state of international relations in the Trump era.
The American president allowed himself to be influenced by extreme right-wing pressure groups regarding a supposed genocide of the Afrikaners, the whites who had introduced apartheid in the country. He also blames South Africa for leading the complaint against Israel to the International Court of Justice regarding its war in the Gaza Strip.
Donald Trump violently confronted President Ramaphosa during a visit to the White House last May, a similar ambush to the one that trapped Volodymyr Zelensky. Since then, relations have deteriorated: Trump boycotted the G20 Summit held in South Africa and excluded this major African country from this year’s G20, set to be held in the United States.
This climate is now clouding the preparations for the G7 in Évian, which France wanted to make a summit for dialogue around a new international order to navigate the current chaos. Paris was not obligated to exclude South Africa, but clearly did not want to risk a clash with Donald Trump, and potentially a summit boycott by the American president.
By inviting Kenya, Paris tried to bypass the obstacle, but South Africa did not want to be humiliated in silence, neither at the G7 in Évian nor at the American G20 this year. The controversy is now in the public eye. African personalities, like economist Carlos Lopes, have already reacted on social media, blaming the French retreat in the face of Trump’s diktat.
This issue is far from being anecdotal; it is instead emblematic of the imperial nature of the current American presidency, and the concessions it obtains through pressure. What kind of world can a summit produce that begins with a humiliating order from a “big” country towards a “less big” one? South Africa obviously has every right to be part of Évian.
