Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly speaks to reporters prior to a meeting during a cabinet retreat at Chateau Montebello in Montebello, Que., on Jan. 20.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canada is taking action to help South Africa overcome the impact of the U.S. boycott of the historic first G20 meetings on African soil, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced this month that he will not attend the Group of 20 ministerial meetings, which begin in Johannesburg on Thursday. He complained that South Africa was promoting diversity, equity and other “very bad things” during its presidency of the group of global leaders this year.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will similarly snub a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Cape Town next week, according to media reports Wednesday.
The South African government has said that it will use its G20 leadership this year to promote “equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring an equal global system for all.”
Canada, as president of the G7 group of advanced economies this year, is helping mobilize support for South Africa at the G20 level, Ms. Joly told The Globe and Mail in an interview in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
“I want to send a clear message to South Africans that Canada, as chair of the G7, will work to make sure that their chairship of the G20 is a success,” Ms. Joly said.
It is her second trip in the past six months to South Africa, the first African country to play host to the G20 summit. The summit of G20 leaders will be held in November, but South Africa expects to hold 130 meetings with officials from G20 countries over the course of this year.
“We want to continue to develop that close relationship [with South Africa] that we had over the years that we took for granted for too long,” Ms. Joly said. “We’re giving much more energy to it.”
There are early signs that South Africa is looking to Canada as one of the allies that can help it endure the foreign-aid cuts that U.S. President Donald Trump imposed on the developing world after taking office last month.
“Canada and South Africa share a common commitment to human rights and solidarity,” foreign minister Ronald Lamola said last week in a social-media post after he spoke to Ms. Joly by phone. His post went viral in South Africa, gaining thousands of “likes” and engagements.
At a time when South Africa is facing “very stringent” threats and aid cuts from Mr. Trump, Canada has useful experience in negotiating with his administration, Ms. Joly said.
“South Africa wanted to reach out to understand a bit more the Trump administration and how to deal with it, and that’s why I was able to talk to Minister Lamola and offer support,” Ms. Joly said. “Canada is the country that understands the American system and the American people.”
Mr. Lamola’s international-relations department, in a separate statement, heaped praise on Canada’s relationship with South Africa. “The role that Canada played in international efforts to pressure the apartheid regime to dismantle, and its support for South Africa’s transition to democracy, strengthened the bonds of friendship and solidarity between democratic South Africa and Canada, which continue to this day,” the department said.
European countries have also voiced support for South Africa in a series of videos by their diplomats in recent days.
The Institute for Security Studies, an Africa-based think tank, warned last week that South Africa might be facing an “unprecedented scenario” – a G20 presidency where the U.S. presence is “diminished, combative or entirely absent.”
The Trump administration’s decision to suspend all foreign-aid programs has inflicted damage on many African countries. Canada can help fill the gap with its own aid programs under its new Africa strategy, which it plans to launch by the end of this month, Ms. Joly said.
“While other countries are turning their back on Africa, we’re actually turning towards Africa,” she said. “There’s a window of opportunity now. We need to seize that window of opportunity.”
In a preview of the forthcoming Africa strategy, Ms. Joly named two diplomats who will be given broader roles as special Canadian envoys. Ben Marc Diendéré, the Canadian ambassador to the African Union, will be given an additional role as envoy for Africa, while the Canadian ambassador to Senegal, Marcel Lebleu, will take on the added post of Canadian envoy to the Sahel – a region where insurgencies and military coups have wrecked havoc in recent years.