Washington: US President Donald Trump has said he would welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to the 2026 G20 summit in Miami if either leader wants to go.
“That’s an interesting question — I’d love them to, if they want to,” Trump told reporters on Friday in the Oval Office.
“I mean, they can, you know, as observers. They’d be observers. I’m not sure they want to be an observer.”
“As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary next year, the United States will have the honour of hosting … the G20 summit right here in America for the first time in nearly 20 years,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The US President noted that he will host the summit at one of his properties, the Doral golf resort, in southern Florida.
“Everybody wants it there because it’s right next to the airport, it’s the best location, it’s beautiful,” Trump said.
During his first term, Trump proposed to host the 2020 G7 summit at the same location.
He later backtracked on the plan after coming under fire from critics who said he sought to personally profit from his presidency.
“There’s no money in it,” Trump said on Friday, but he added, “We want to make sure it’s good.”
Russia and China are both members of the G20 — however, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has skipped the 2023 summit in New Delhi and 2024’s meeting in Rio de Janeiro, instead dispatching Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Xi attended last year’s summit in Brazil.
Trump announced earlier on Friday that he plans to host the 2026 forum of the world’s largest economies at his Doral golf club in the Miami area.
This year’s G20 summit is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg from November 22 to 23.
The US President confirmed he will not attend the meeting of world leaders in South Africa.
Instead, Vice-President J.D. Vance will go in Trump’s place.
“I won’t be going this year, it’s in South Africa. I won’t be going, JD will be going, great Vice President, and he looks forward to it. But no, I won’t be going to that,” the US President said.
The US President signaled earlier this year that he was likely to skip this year’s G20 summit because he has had “a lot of problems with” the host country.
In February, Trump suspended aid to South Africa, alleging discrimination against White farmers.
In that same executive order, Trump said the US would “promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation”.
Earlier this year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also announced he was skipping the meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers in Johannesburg, saying at the time “South Africa is doing very bad things”.
(IANS)
