Furious World Leaders Lock Out Trump from Closing Ceremony

0:05What you saw right there are attendees of the G20 summit in South Africa, celebrating a very successful summit, also celebrating the fact that South Africa and world leaders locked the United States out of the G20 closing ceremony. Now, normally what takes place at the G20 closing ceremony is that the current president of the G20, the leader in this case, who happens to be the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, would hand over the gavel to the next year leader of the G20, which is the United States. And that's been planned for some time. So that would have been Donald Trump. But Donald Trump did not show up to the G20.

0:47The United States essentially boycotted the G20. The United States lied and claimed that there was a white genocide taking place in South Africa. So the very first time that the G20 was held in the African continent, the United States refused to show up and threw a tantrum, blaming a fake white genocide as the reason the United States refused to show up. One of the real reasons that Trump refused to show up is that he's scared of these types of forums because he looks so utterly pathetic. And he has such a distaste for multilateralism. And these types of meetings support international cooperation.

1:25And so what was supposed to take place here is that you were going to have the president of South Africa, who's leading right now, the G20 Ramaphosa, hand over the gavel, signifying unity and transition and stability to Donald Trump, but Trump wasn't there. So the U.S. wanted to send a junior attache, a junior State Department official, someone not at the leader of a state level. And South Africa's like, no, you didn't show up. We're not having anybody from the United States participate in the gavel ceremony. If you want, you can show up at basically the equivalent of the State Department in South Africa, they call Dirk their International Affairs Office, show up at a later time.

2:09There's not going to be cameras. We'll hand you over the paperwork, but you're not sending some junior person to take the gavel. And instead, you had Ramaphosa, the president of South Africa, hold the gavel and then give a hug to President Lula of Brazil, who hosted the G20 last year, where former President Biden attended, they embraced. There was no Trump, no United States. The U.S. was locked out. And you saw everybody basically celebrating and mocking Trump and sadly kind of mocking what Trump has turned the United States into. Watch as the gavel was held up, not passed over like it should have been.

2:50And you'll see President Lula of Brazil, he himself had been under attack by Donald Trump, embracing Ramaphosa. Here, play this clip. This gavel, this gavel of this G20 summit formally closes this summit and now moves on to the next president of the G20, which is the United States, where we shall see each other again next year. The summit is therefore closed.

3:36So let's talk about also what was going on while this was happening. In the absence of the United States, basically all these countries and these speakers were just straight up roasting Donald Trump. They were roasting the United States and how Trump has weakened the United States on the international scene. So for example, you had Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Sachs giving a speech at the University of South Africa, an event attended by a lot of these nations and their leaders and watch him just mock Donald Trump, call out Donald Trump for the tantrum that he had here. Play this clip. Why isn't Donald Trump coming tomorrow?

4:19Because he has a four-year-old mentality and he's having a tantrum.

4:33He's having a tantrum. What is the tantrum? that the rest of the world says, we don't want a king. As President Lula said, we don't need an emperor. He would come here as just one of 20 leaders or 21. He doesn't want that, he's having a tantrum.

5:03So this rebalancing is happening. He's having a particular tantrum, by the way, because the United States is in a deeply neurotic funk. You know what the cause of that neurosis is? China. A wonderful, brilliant civilization. 4 ,000 years old plus it's been a unified state with brilliant statecraft for more than 2 ,000 years. Then in this speech, Sachs also accused Trump of sending the CIA to blow up an oil refinery in Venezuela that in the past 24 hours blew up. And Sachs says, look, I can't prove it was the CIA, but seems likely what went down. Here play this clip. Today, a major refinery in Venezuela suddenly exploded.

6:11That seems a lot like the CIA to me. I don't guarantee it. We don't have any more news. But last week, President Trump said he had assigned the CIA to operations inside Venezuela. and a week later, suddenly the biggest refinery blows up. So the United States can hardly go a week at a time without trying to kill somebody. But China actually goes centuries without attacking its neighbors. And then more from Jeffrey Sachs right here. Here, let's play this clip. I always emphasize geography in thinking about economics. So the geography is that at Pennsylvania Avenue, which is where the White House is, now there's a West Wing and no East Wing because he knocked it down a couple weeks ago.

7:10This idiot. Excuse me. Sorry. It's true. I'm just being technical. At 16th in Pennsylvania is the White House. 15th in Pennsylvania is the Treasury Building. 17th in Pennsylvania is what's called the Executive Office of the President of the U.S. 18th in Pennsylvania is the World Bank. And 19th in Pennsylvania is the International Monetary Fund. So it's only two blocks from the President's office to tell the IMF what to do. You don't even need to text it. It takes 30 seconds to walk across the street to say, veto that country's program. And that's still power. But it's power that is fading. It's fading in part because of the BRICS.

8:09Because the BRICS are saying, we don't need to be under the thumb of a U.S. empire. That's what President Lula said when he was hosting the BRICS this summer. And Trump put on a tariff on Brazil because he didn't like a court proceeding against the preceding president who had tried to make a coup. And so he put on a penalty tariff and President Lula said, we don't need an emperor. and we're not going to succumb to this kind of pressure. So the BRICS, of which you are an esteemed member, the S in BRICS, remember the 10 BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now Egypt and Ethiopia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Indonesia.

9:12The 10 BRICS countries have 46 % of the world population. Thank you.

9:24And 41 % of the world GDP.

9:33And they can look at the G7 and say, who are you? And that's what they're doing. So this is the new phase of geopolitics.

10:10participate in the ceremony. I want you to watch right here how it's day two of the G20 summit in Johannesburg. And here it is, the U.S. being locked out of the closing ceremony. Play this clip. Now it's the second and final day. There has to be a handover. That must happen. And from what we've heard from the presidency, it's not going to happen if there's a junior official in the room. I'm not aware if there's been any changes. Are you able to update us what to expect? So every delegate coming here was registered. There was pre-registration and registration closed. So those who are not in the room have not registered because they chose not to register.

10:47But secondly, we have indicated that when we're told, remember, we are a country, things get planned. When we're told that we're not going to participate, we're not going to be there, nobody's going to be there, we have to make alternative arrangements. And the arrangement of today is that we have a closing ceremony and we don't have a handover ceremony. The handover ceremony, as articulated by the Minister of International Relations, will take place in line with what the United States have communicated. The Ashaje will receive the handover from South Africa, and an equivalent level official at DECO will then hand over to them.

11:20You can't have a president handing over to an official, and they are not here. They didn't register to be here. They didn't get accredited to be here because they didn't come on time to be here. And here's another clip right here of another government official saying, look, if they want to come to the DIRCO, the DIRCO, like the International Affairs Office, you could show up, you could knock United States, but you're not going to get some forum here in the gavel ceremony. You didn't show up. Too bad. So sad. See you later. You don't get to send anybody. Here, play this clip. We did not deny anyone access.

11:54The United States is a member of the G20. And if they want to be represented, they can still send anyone at the right level. is the leaders summit and the right level is head of state it's a special envoy appointed by the president of that country it could also be a minister and we have always been open so we have not denied anyone what we have said because it's an officials level in terms of him that issue is that the derko accept the fact that the u.s. is gonna be taking over this platform of the g20 and we welcome that they want to take it over. They can come at our offices and the right level officials will hand over the G20 to the American officials.

12:40So no access to the charge do you think? No, they are allowed to participate. It's up to them. But the issue of hand over, the issue of hand over, the president of the Republic of South Africa will not be handing over to the charge the affair from the U.S. We will be handing over to the U.S. in the DERCO offices or anywhere they may want us to arrange within the borders of the Republic of South Africa. Now, what's been interesting about this entire ceremony is how unified the rest of the world leaders were at the G20, which essentially became the G19 without Trump there. And all the world leaders were saying without Trump, without the United States, there was less drama.

13:21They were able to focus on important things like multilateralism, climate change, dealing with rethinking international finance structures, which often keep lots of developing countries in significant debt. And they're focused more on debt servicing than actually development. And you heard Professor Sachs reference the proximity of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to the White House right off of Pennsylvania Avenue there as well. Now that it's getting cold, my cats have started their daily migration to lying on top of our heating vents, which for some reason makes them unusually hungry.

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15:51And then they read this declaration, but this time without Trump and without the U S there, the G19, which it's what, what it's become, they were able to do a declaration at the opening ceremony. So the opening ceremony, They all agreed. Here are the things we're focused on. Multilateralism, international cooperation, growth, figuring out resiliency. And then you'll see over here Ramaphosa delivering the opening ceremony statement by issuing the declaration right from the outset. That never happens. But the message was being sent to Trump and the Trump regime. We don't need you here. Look how quick we could get things done without you.

16:38Here play this clip. This G20 leader summit has a responsibility not to allow the integrity and the credibility of the G20 to be weakened. In fact, from this summit, we should have a sense that the G20 has been strengthened. We thank all delegations that have worked together with us in good faith to produce a worthy G20 outcome document for this historic leaders' meeting. The G20 underscores the value of the relevance of multilateralism. It recognizes that the challenges that we face can only be resolved through cooperation, collaboration and partnership. The adoption of the Declaration from the summit sends an important signal to the world that multilateralism can and does deliver.

17:48It sends a message of hope and solidarity across the world. It tells the world that as the leaders of the G20, we will keep fast to our solemn pledge to leave no person, no community, and no country behind. And by the way, you saw the world leaders. Here are photos of them together. the family photo of all the G20, or I should say the G19. Look at them. They're all smiles. I mean, you've got, here's photos of Carney and Modi and Albanese. And you see these other world leaders right there. They're happy. They're cooperative. They're working together. Sans, no United States being there. I want to highlight though as well, what the gavel ceremony was supposed to look like, just so you have a frame of reference.

18:43So when the gavel was handed over from Modi, the leader of India, prime minister of India, to Lula, the president of Brazil, here's what that gavel ceremony looked like back in 2023. Play this clip. Give it. Give it.

19:03Give it.

19:10And if you want to see what it looked like when we had a normal president who would give speeches at the G20, unlike Trump, who was so scared to show up. Here is what former President Biden's speech at the G20 was when India, when Modi was leading the G20 back in 2023. Here play this clip. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. One Earth, one family, one future. That's the focus of this G20 Summit. And in many ways, it's also the focus of this partnership that we're talking about today. Building sustainable, resilient infrastructure, making quality infrastructure investments, and creating a better future.

19:57A future that presents greater opportunity, dignity, and prosperity for everyone. Last year, we came together as one to commit to this vision. And this afternoon, I want to highlight the key ways which the United States and our partners are working to make this a reality. Now, let me share with you this. This is President Lula's speech attacking Trump. This was Lula's speech from this G20. Let me be clear. And talking about how this attack on multilateralism, this attack on the G20, this attack on developing countries, this attack on addressing climate change is so deeply problematic. Here, play this clip.

20:42We have embarked on a path that repeated the recipe of austerity as an end in itself, which deepened inequalities and expanded tensions of authority. Now, protectionism and unilateralism re-emerge as a response to facts and fallacies in the face of the complexity of the current reality, and their effects exacerbate the problems we face. The very functioning of the G20 as a forum for dialogue and coordination is under threat. It is necessary to preserve the capacity of this Forum to address the major issues of today. If we are not able to find the way within the G20, it will not be possible to do so in a world in conflict.

21:17The historic social and economic problems of Latin America and the Caribbean will not be solved through the threat of the use of force. Without attending to all developing countries, it will not be possible to restore global balance or ensure sustainable prosperity in the long term. There is a negative flow of capital from the countries of the South to the rich countries of the Global North. The debt problem of the countries of the Global South is ethically unacceptable and economically unsustainable. Almost half of the world population lives in countries that spend more on debt service than on health or education.

21:50We are now entering a new stage that will require a simultaneous effort on two fronts, accelerating actions to address climate change and preparing for a new climate reality. The G20 plays a central role in both. The group is responsible for 77 % of global emissions, and it is from the G20 that a new economic model must emerge. The group is a key actor in developing a roadmap to move the world away from fossil fuels. Climate change is not simply an environmental policy issue. It is, above all, a challenge of economic planning. Priorities are inverted. It is inconceivable that we are unable to mobilize$1.3 trillion in climate financing, while twice that amount is consumed in military spending.

22:33And again, one of the things that we are seeing in Brazil obviously plays a big role in this, because they are the bee in bricks, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Egypt and other countries have joined as well. And other countries have joined, pooling their economic power together. and we've seen an acceleration of that, is as the United States has pulled away from its role as a leader in the world, as you heard Professor Sachs says, based on this neuroses and this kind of odd Trumpian-like behavior, other nations are asserting themselves in different ways. And people are looking for, I think most importantly now, reliability, reliable allies, reliable trading partners and people who don't use the multilateral trading system as a means of exploiting each other.

23:25This was interesting, you know, to hear the prime minister of Singapore, very accomplished guy who also happens to be their finance minister as well. Here's his speech right here. Very powerful. And you'll see he talks about this developing new world order. Play this clip. For decades, the rules-based multilateral system anchored by the WTO provided this stability. But the system is now under severe strain. One reason is that the system has been optimized for efficiency in a different era, and it has not caught up with the realities of today's world, realities like digital trade, as well as the fact that interdependencies are increasingly being seen as vulnerabilities and are open to being weaponized or used as leverage in moments of dispute.

24:18Understandably, countries are taking actions to protect themselves and to prioritize resilience and security. Yet, if every nation goes its own way, the global system will unravel even more quickly. And when that happens, everyone will be worse off, and the heaviest burden will fall on the developing nations. So we do need to reform and update the global system to ensure it addresses the strategic realities of our time. First, we must recommit to the core foundations which remain relevant today, and that means upholding international law and the norms and practices that guide state behavior. That is critical to continued peace and stability in the world.

25:06Second, we must reform the current system, be it the WTO or other global institutions. We cannot be paralyzed by old ways of doing things. We all have to get behind the urgent reforms that are needed in the WTO so that it becomes more effective and outcome-oriented. We should complement the WTO with flexible, multilateral approaches, and that's why Singapore supports mini-laterals and plurilaterals, which can serve as important pathfinders towards updating global rules. Third, we should build new partnerships. And as several colleagues have talked about just now, we are making progress with partnerships and dialogues between the CPTPP and ASEAN, as well as the CPTPP and the EU.

25:54In fact, two days ago, ministers came together and had a very productive trade and investment dialogue covering issues like trade and investment facilitation, digital trade, and supply chain resilience. In the same regard, we should look at ways in which we can bring the free trade areas and free trade blocks in Africa closer with Southeast Asia and ASEAN. Recently, Singapore also joined with other countries like New Zealand, Switzerland and the UAE to launch a new framework called the Future of Investment and Trade Partnership that brings together small and medium-sized economies to keep up the momentum of trade liberalization.

26:37All of these efforts can form the foundations of a more resilient and secure multilateral trading system. To be clear, building a new global economic architecture will require significant effort and considerable political will. Multiple efforts are already underway, as I described just now. The G20 can and should play a key leadership role in coordinating these efforts, and Singapore stands ready to do our part and work with all members towards this objective. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Prime Minister Wong. And always, Prime Minister Carney delivers a great speech. That's a given.