The US is set to shift its approach towards the G20 when it takes over the group\u2019s rotating presidency from South Africa in December.<\/p>\n
The finance ministers of the Group of 20 have finally reached a consensus following meetings in South Africa, emphasising that central banks must remain independent in reaction to months of attacks by United States President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
In their final statement published on Friday, following two days of meetings in the coastal city of Durban, the grouping agreed on key challenges for the global economy, including ongoing wars and conflicts, trade disputes, supply chain disruptions, debt and natural disasters.<\/p>\n
The G20 finance ministers have met several times since the beginning of the year, but have been unable to agree on a joint statement at previous summits.<\/p>\n
\u201cCentral banks are strongly committed to ensuring price stability, consistent with their respective mandates, and will continue to adjust their policies in a data-dependent manner,\u201d the grouping said in Friday\u2019s joint declaration, their first communique since October.<\/p>\n
\u201cCentral bank independence is crucial to achieving this goal,\u201d read the statement, which was also signed by the US.<\/p>\n
Trump has for a long time been criticising the Federal Reserve \u2013 the central bank of the US \u2013 mainly over its decision on interest rates.<\/p>\n
His attacks have intensified during his second term in office, and have mainly targeted Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell, whom he has called a \u201cmoron\u201d, \u201cnumbskull\u201d, and \u201cstubborn mule\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trump is unhappy with the central bank\u2019s decision to lower interest rates slower than he prefers in an effort to fight inflation. He has also strongly criticised Powell for his handling of a project to renovate the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n
The joint communique on Friday was reached in the absence of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but Washington was represented by Michael Kaplan, acting undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs.<\/p>\n
Bessent had also missed the previous gathering of the finance ministers of the G20 in Cape Town in February, when the representatives had failed to reach a joint stance to the dismay of host country South Africa.<\/p>\n
Economic \u2018uncertainty\u2019, complex challenges<\/p>\n
The US is set to assume the G20\u2019s rotating presidency in December, but it reportedly plans to shift its approach to the multilateral institution, which it helped found in 1999.<\/p>\n
Three unnamed US sources cited by the Reuters news agency said on Friday that Washington plans to focus on the G20 leaders\u2019 summit and the financial meetings in November, eliminating other working groups and ministerial-level meetings, including those on energy, healthcare, commerce, and environment.<\/p>\n
The US has already withdrawn from co-chairing a working group on sustainable finance with China, and it remains unclear whether Trump will join the leaders\u2019 summit in South Africa.<\/p>\n
In its joint statement, the group also highlighted the global trade landscape that has increasingly been rocked by Trump\u2019s tariffs, as well as wars involving the US and its allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe global economy is facing heightened uncertainty and complex challenges, including ongoing wars and conflicts, geopolitical and trade tensions,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The G20 is made up of 19 nations, as well as the European Union and the African Union, and its members account for more than 80 percent of the world\u2019s economic output.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US is set to shift its approach towards the G20 when it takes over the group\u2019s rotating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5684,45,1686,49,48,1376,46,44,714,5685,772,1690],"class_list":["post-7408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-africa","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-south-africa","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}