View from India: America wants G20 on a leash

The G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Atlanta (USA), Oct. 30, 2026
Photo: AP

The US presidency has shrunk the G20 agenda, which had been broadened under the earlier four presidencies of Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa, to reflect the priorities not only of the G7 but also the developing world. Washington is narrowing a once-broader forum into a tool for its own priorities, sidelining development, climate and the Global South, writes Kanwal Sibal, a retired Indian foreign secretary and former Ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2007, who held ambassadorial positions in Turkey, Egypt, France and was Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC.

If the G7 nations had felt that they could on their own handle the global fall-out of the 2008 financial crisis they would have not felt the need to elevate the G20, which includes key emerging economies, from a routine meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors to a summit of heads of states and governments. From that perspective, these powers were compelled to include the interests and priorities of those emerging economies in the G20 agenda.

The G20 concept is thus rooted in a more cooperative multilateral approach to address multiple global challenges. The G20 agenda cannot be aligned with US priorities alone.

The US State Department had announced beforehand its intention to assert its priorities – limiting regulatory barriers to investment and encouraging transparent governance to foster global competitiveness, focusing on energy independence, reliable energy access, resilient supply chains, and safe navigation through critical international waterways (such as the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab), accelerating digital advancement and artificial intelligence (AI) policies while protecting security, privacy, and intellectual property, refocusing the G20 on its core economic mandate, addressing global supply chain resilience, trade consensus, critical minerals, and geopolitical disruptions affecting markets.

These are no doubt important issues to address collectively, but they are not the only ones.

The contrast between the Chair’s statement on the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting issued by India in 2023 and the Chair’s statement issued under the US presidency is illuminating.

In 2023, the issues covered were insufficient progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss, economic slowdown, debt distress, uneven pandemic recovery, growing poverty and inequality, food and energy insecurity, and global supply chain disruptions aggravated by geopolitical tensions and conflicts.

The US Chair’s statement talks of taking the G20 “back to basics.” These “basics,” which the organization had ostensibly departed from, cannot be defined unilaterally by one member. The priorities of not only the developing countries but also of other G7 countries have been ignored.

The paragraph in the US statement referring to rising energy costs glosses over Washington’s own role in driving them higher. By sanctioning Russian oil and gas, and then worsening the situation through its attack on Iran, the US has contributed directly to disruptions in the flow of oil and LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. The threat to energy transit through the Bab al-Mandab is also a consequence of the instability created in West Asia.

If “energy is a foundational requirement for economic progress,” as the statement says, then why is the global energy market being disrupted by US and European actions? Why was the Nord Stream pipeline blown up? Why has India, a country highly dependent on energy imports, been pressured to cease buying Russian oil under threat of sanctions?

The US has walked out of the WHO, the Paris Climate Change Agreement and has effectively gutted the WTO by imposing tariffs on countries arbitrarily. Its dismissive attitude towards the UN and ignoring its development agenda explains the absence of any reference to UN reforms, the raising of additional resources by MDBs, debt issues, SDGs, climate change issues, etc.

The G20 Foreign Ministers meeting at the end of October was marred by other arbitrary decisions and undiplomatic behavior. The US had no authority to exclude South Africa, a G20 member, from the meeting. South Africa in fact chaired the G20 in 2025. It had no authority to invite Poland to take South Africa’s place. The G20 can function only on the basis of consensus, and South Africa’s exclusion and Poland’s inclusion violated the consensus rule.

The refusal of some European foreign ministers to be photographed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the traditional group photograph was not adult diplomacy. The European ministers had, however, no objection to being photographed in working sessions with Lavrov and even address him directly and aggressively. Some have questioned the propriety of inviting Russia at all to the G20 meeting. This kind of conduct casts doubt on whether a negotiated solution to the Ukraine conflict can be seriously explored unless fissures in the EU or the collapse of the Zelensky regime change the situation.

The UK will take over the presidency of the G20 in 2027. Unless something dramatic happens on the Ukraine front, Britain’s enmity towards Russia will become a huge problem for the consensual functioning of the group.

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