The Daily Star
BUENOS AIRES: G-20 member nations were still struggling to reach agreement on major issues including trade, migration and climate change as world leaders began arriving in Buenos Aires ahead of a summit starting Friday.
“This is not a good year for multilateralism,” a German government source said about talks on a final communique that the leaders are due to issue at the end of their meeting Saturday. The negotiations are “very, very difficult,” the official told Reuters.
The official offered no details on the points of dispute, but global trade tensions, fueled by President Donald Trump’s launch of a trade war against China, are expected to dominate this year’s gathering of the G-20, an unwieldy club of the world’s industrialized countries.
Trump’s skepticism of man-made global warming has also raised questions about what the communique will say on the issue.
This year’s G-20 gathering in the Argentine capital is expected to be one of the most consequential summits since the group’s leaders first met in 2008 to plan how to contain the economic crisis roiling the globe.
Financial and commodities markets are closely watching the outcome of the summit, especially the planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping Saturday.
“After 2 1/2 days of talks and very short nights, some two-thirds of the paragraphs have been OK’d,” a G-20 official involved in drafting the communique said.
“Now, trade, climate, migrants, refugees, multilateralism, steel which are really the thorny issues remain without agreement.”
Argentina, this year’s G-20 president, has stressed the importance of the summit as a consensus-building forum. But the divisions on the final communique have only highlighted how fractured the grouping has become on key global issues.
“It’s moving very very slowly so slowly that I think we will have to stay in this room past midnight, again,” an Asian delegate who was attending the closed-door discussion told Reuters.
Financial markets though are less concerned about the ability of the leaders to present a united front and more anxious about the outcome of key bilateral meetings. Wall Street edged lower Thursday amid jitters over Trump’s meeting with Xi.
Trump said Thursday he was open to a trade deal with China but was not sure he wanted one.
“I think we’re very close to doing something with China but I don’t know that I want to do it,” Trump told reporters. Trump’s hard-line trade adviser Peter Navarro will attend the meeting between Trump and Xi, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.China, for its part, is hoping for “positive results” in resolving the trade dispute with the United States, the Commerce Ministry said.
The U.S. has levied additional duties of between 10 percent and 25 percent on $250 billion of Chinese goods this year as punishment for what it calls China’s unfair trade practices, with the 10 percent tariffs set to climb to 25 percent next year. China has responded with its own tariffs.
This year’s G-20 summit is also grappling with how to handle the presence of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler arrived in Buenos Aires Wednesday under a cloud of controversy over the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. Argentine President Mauricio Macri said the allegations against bin Salman may be discussed during the G-20 summit. Saudi Arabia has said the prince had no prior knowledge of the murder.
Macri was speaking at a joint news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, who said Khashoggi’s murder was “very serious.”
As leaders arrived, Argentine security forces began locking down the central business district in Buenos Aires.
The government has declared Friday a national holiday and urged the capital’s residents to leave to avoid travel chaos caused by the security lockdown. Major protests are also due Friday.