The dispute between South Africa and the US over the Trump administration’s decision to boycott the G20 in Johannesburg has continued, with South Africa objecting to a US plan for a junior embassy official to take part in the closing ceremony meant to mark the handover to the next summit, which will take place in Florida.

The two-day summit, which opens on Saturday, comes at a febrile moment in global politics. The US has proposed a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which it agreed with Moscow without the involvement of Ukraine or the EU.

Washington has also been accusing South Africa for months of racial discrimination against minority white Afrikaners, who ruled the country during apartheid, which South Africa has vehemently rejected.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, told a press conference on Thursday that the US had had a change of mind about participating in the G20 and that the two sides were discussing what form US involvement could take. He had said earlier in the day that countries should not be bullied and that their sovereignty should be respected.

The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, hit back: “The US is not participating in official talks at the G20 in South Africa. I saw the South African president running his mouth a little bit against the United States and the president of the United States earlier today, and that language is not appreciated by the president or his team.

“The ambassador or the representative of the embassy in South Africa is simply there to recognise that the United States will be the host of the G20 [next year]. They are receiving that send-off at the end of that event. They are not there to participate in official talks, despite what the South African president is falsely claiming.”

The US does not currently have an ambassador in Pretoria, with Marc Dillard the acting ambassador or chargé d’affaires.

Many South Africans reacted furiously to what they perceived as a snub to their country. The foreign ministry, Chrispin Phiri, said: “President will not be handing over to a junior embassy official.”

Ramaphosa had previously said he would hand the G20 presidency to an “empty chair”, but that he would have preferred to give it directly to Donald Trump.

People in Johannesburg take part in a lie-down protest over violence against women to coincide with the G20 summit. Photograph: Ihsaan Haffejee/AFP/Getty Images

The 2026 summit will take place at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort in Florida, which is owned by the Trump Organization.

Analysts said the US boycott of the G20 was more likely to harm than help its global standing. Marisa Lourenço, a political risk consultant based in Johannesburg, said: “China or India in the past might get criticised for certain actions … Now the US is really being seen as the unreasonable one, because it’s becoming clearer and clearer that what it’s doing to South Africa is just completely misguided.”

The G20 was founded in 1999 after the Asian financial crisis. It was envisaged as a broader alternative to the G7 for the world’s largest economies and the EU to try to find common positions on global economic and financial issues.

South Africa has taken great pride in being the first African country to preside over the G20, presenting itself as a champion of issues important to many countries on the continent. These include high levels of public debt and how to get the most benefit from the growing demand for “critical minerals” used in green technologies and found in many parts of the region.

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The country’s other priorities for its year leading the G20 are to increase financing for a “just energy transition” – moving away from fossil fuels while preserving economic livelihoods – and improve disaster resilience and responses.

As part of his G20 presidency, Ramaphosa commissioned reports into Africa’s high debt levels and global inequality. The latter, produced by a panel independent experts led by the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, cited data showing that the world’s wealthiest 1% had captured 41% of all wealth generated between 2000 and 2024, while the poorest 50% had received just 1%.

The panel recommended the formation of an independent body to synthesise data and research on inequality and assess the effectiveness of policies to tackle it. Ramaphosa, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, also threw their weight behind the proposal in a Financial Times opinion piece on Thursday.

Jayati Ghosh, an economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst and one of thepanel members, told reporters: “Wealth concentration is growing. Income inequality is also a result of that, but we found wealth inequality to be even possibly the biggest problem, because it generates also greater inequality of power.”

Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of UNAids and another panel member said the independent monitoring body, which the panel compared to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, could be formed without a G20 resolution or US involvement. “It doesn’t have to start with a consensus, it can start with those who want to take it forward,” said Byanyima, who will address G20 leaders on inequality on Saturday.

Protests over violence against women have been timed across South Africa to coincide with the G20. At midday on Friday, thousands of people lay down for 15 minutes of silence in memory of the 15 women murdered on average every day in the country.