Fractious G20 summit opens
G20 powers yesterday opened two days of summit talks after a stormy buildup dominated by tensions with Russia and US President Donald Trump's combative stance on trade and climate fears.
Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, China's President Xi Jinping are among the world leaders gathered amid high tension over an array of world issues including the Ukraine conflict, trade with China and relations with Saudi Arabia.
Protesters have vowed mass rallies to harangue the world leaders gathering in crisis-hit Argentina, where recent violence between rival football fans raised questions about the police's ability to control unrest.
Trump landed in Buenos Aires on Thursday after stoking tensions by calling off the Putin meeting over Russia's recent seizure of Ukrainian ships and sailors.
"I look forward to a meaningful Summit again as soon as this situation is resolved!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
His decision came as a US probe into Russia's role in Trump's election campaign intensified. Investigator Robert Mueller revealed that former top Trump aide Michael Cohen had admitted direct communications with Putin's office.
The Kremlin said it "regrets" Trump's decision to scrap the meeting.
Putin, on his part, denounced the "vicious" use of sanctions and trade protectionism, in a veiled swipe at Donald Trump.
"One cannot help but see a dishonest competition increasingly taking the place of honest dialogue based on equality among states," Putin told leaders of emerging economies as the summit opened in Buenos Aires.
"A vicious practice of returning to illegal, unilateral sanctions and protectionist measures is spreading, going around the UN Charter, the rules of the WTO and internationally recognized legal norms," Putin said.
Putin said that the result was "an extremely negative effect on the spirit of international cooperation," discouraging business.
Trump aimed to start the summit with a victory for his "America First" trade agenda, by having trade negotiators sign a successor to the North American free trade pact NAFTA, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
Trump declares it a victory on behalf of the US workers he claims were cheated by NAFTA.
Trump also has China in his sights as he prepares to meet President Xi Jinping on the G20 margins.
The United States has cast today's talks with Xi as a deadline for China to cave on key trade concerns of Trump.
The US leader has slapped $250 billion in tariffs on the Asian power and threatened more to come in January.
The G20 summit will be accompanied by an array of diplomatic initiatives with several bilateral meetings, including ones involving Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to miss the summit's opening after her plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Cologne due to what she called a "serious" a technical problem.
She eventually took off on a flight from Madrid bound for Buenos Aires yesterday.
Her temporary absence could complicate French President Emmanuel Macron's attempts to build a European front against Trump at a meeting of EU leaders attending the G20.
Macron on Thursday rejected those who wish to confront economic challenges by being "bellicose, isolationist and closing down borders."
Among the other leaders at the summit will be Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the focus of tensions over the murder of one of his prominent critics in October.
Macron said he would raise the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi with the crown prince on the sidelines of the summit.
G20 sources said climate change was emerging as the biggest stumbling block to agreement on a joint communique when the summit concludes today.
Trump has yanked the United States out of the landmark Paris climate accord. His opposition to collective action stands in defiance of scientists' increasingly urgent warnings that policy action is desperately needed to counter the climate threat.
Macron meanwhile warned that France would refuse to move forward on a trade accord with South America's Mercosur bloc if Brazil's incoming far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, also pulls out of the Paris climate accord.
With a major UN meeting on climate change starting next week in Poland straight after the G20, UN chief Antonio Guterres said in Buenos Aires that "this is a make-it-or-break-it moment."
Two major summits this year, of the Group of Seven democracies and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, ended without the once-routine statements.
"Will we even have a communique? It really is an open question," said former Canadian negotiator Thomas Bernes, a senior fellow at the Ontario-based Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Comments