2023-09-09 08:11:33
The G20 leaders begin a summit today in New Delhi in which India seeks to facilitate a dialogue on Ukraine and climate change, despite the absence of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
The rulers are divided on key issues such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the goal of gradually abandoning fossil fuels and the restructuring of global debt, making it difficult for there to be a final declaration tomorrow, as there was at the previous Bali summit. , Indonesia.
Latin America will be represented by the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose country will assume the presidency of the bloc after India, and the Argentine Alberto Fernández. The Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador will not attend. Lula’s agenda during his stay in the Indian capital includes bilateral meetings with the presidents of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, among others.
Likewise, the US president, Joe Biden, arrived in New Delhi yesterday evening and his agenda in India began with a bilateral meeting with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, whom he received with great pomp in June at the White House. .
A statement from the White House indicates that, at the meeting, Biden reaffirmed his support for India to access a reformed UN Security Council as a permanent member, and they discussed issues of defense cooperation, renewable energy and human rights.
The United States seeks to strengthen its ties with India in a fight with China, and for its part, New Delhi tries to consolidate its international leadership.
Dysfunctional family. The absence of two heavyweights like Putin and Xi, who usually act as a counterweight, leaves Biden free to play a central role at the summit. Russia is represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and the Chinese mission is headed by Premier Li Qiang.
The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, warned yesterday, on the eve of the summit, that the world looks like a “dysfunctional family”, in the midst of growing polarization that can lead to greater conflicts. “If we really are a global family, today we seem to be a rather dysfunctional family,” Guterres declared at a press conference.
“Divisions are growing, tensions are rising and trust is eroding, which together raise the specter of fragmentation and, ultimately, confrontation.
Biden arrives in India at a key moment in the chess of geopolitical alliances with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop and with China, which seeks to consolidate its influence and increasingly challenges Washington.
The US president hopes to take advantage of this summit to demonstrate that the bloc, despite its divisions, continues to be the main forum for global economic cooperation.
The United States is “carefully” monitoring the challenges facing China, such as declining domestic consumption, real estate sector indebtedness and demographic challenges, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in New Delhi.
Yellen said she was aware of the risk that China’s situation poses for global growth, but assured that “in general, the global economy has been resilient.” She added that “the most important negative influence is the Russian war in Ukraine.”
A “scandalous” blockade. The G20 appears divided over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with several developing countries in the forum more concerned about grain prices than diplomatic condemnations of Moscow.
Modi’s efforts to get G20 leaders to avoid divisions and address crucial global issues, particularly global debt restructuring and commodity price volatility following the invasion of Ukraine, have been in vain at ministerial meetings. prior to the summit, in which there were no final documents by consensus.
In this regard, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, declared that it is “frankly scandalous that Russia, after ending the Black Sea grain initiative, blocks and attacks Ukrainian ports.”
Modi also reaffirmed on Thursday his desire to expand the G20 with “the inclusion of the African Union as a permanent member.”
“I am delighted to welcome the African Union as a permanent member of the G20 and am proud that the EU immediately reacted positively to support this candidacy,” said Michel.
“We will wait to see what the decision will be, but one thing is clear: the EU supports Africa’s accession to the G20,” he added.
The Indian leader also called on the G20 leaders to financially and technologically support developing countries in the fight against climate change.”
The US will ask for more resources for the IMF and the WB
Agencies
The United States intends to work at the G20 summit “to build support for increased resources from the IMF and the World Bank” in order to “help member countries confront multiple global challenges,” said the Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, in a meeting broadcast in New Delhi.
Washington is evaluating the possibility of promoting an “equiproportional” increase in the quotas that each country contributes to the Fund, to increase the resources available to the Fund for loans to emerging countries, without modifying the organization’s share structure.
That decision would speed up the flow of more resources to countries under financial stress, while IMF shareholders could take more time to work out a new IMF share distribution that would give more weight to emerging market economies such as India, China and Brazil. .
Yellen revealed that the Biden administration asked Congress for authorization to lend $21 billion to IMF trust funds, including one for the poorest countries, which “desperately need more resources.”
The Treasury Secretary announced that at the New Delhi summit she will mention debt forgiveness for the poorest countries, a topic that stands out in all international meetings, especially when China, the largest bilateral lender in the world, is present.
“We continue to support efforts to provide predictable, orderly and timely debt relief to countries, including under the (G20) Common Framework for Debt Treatment, where progress has been too slow,” he added.
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