JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Leaders and delegates from the world's richest nations and top developing countries are gathering this weekend for the Group of 20 summit in South Africa, an event overshadowed by the boycott of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.
Africa's first G20 summit will see representatives of 42 countries, but not the United States, a founding member of the group and one that's supposed to be taking over its rotating presidency in Johannesburg.
Trump has denounced South Africa's leadership of the G20 and said he would not attend, citing alleged discrimination of the country’s white farmers. South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has said he’s told Trump that information about the alleged persecution of Afrikaners is “completely false.”
Last Friday, Trump also said that no U.S. officials would attend the gathering. The U.S. boycott has dominated discussions — more so than the summit's agenda, which includes climate resilience, debt sustainability for poor nations and growing inequality.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year skipped the G20 meeting of foreign ministers, followed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent who missed the finance ministers meeting. The U.S. has also urged member nations not to adopt a “Leaders Declaration” at the end of the summit, which would signal a multilateral consensus.
Still, Johannesburg has been a hive of activity ahead of the summit — workers have undertaken a massive clean-up of the streets and bright flowers have been planted along some city roads, adorned with colorful G20 banners and billboards.
While the hosts have admitted that the U.S. absence raises concerns about the summit's ultimate success, South Africa's foreign minister, Ronald Lamola, said Tuesday it was also an opportunity “to send a clear message that the world can move on" without the U.S. — but that it won't be easy.
“It will not be a walk in the park, but when there is global consensus, we can be able to find persuasive means to enable the world to function,” Lamola said.
He downplayed both Trump's absence and those of other heads of state who are not making it to Johannesburg, saying that a “100% attendance of heads of states” has never happened.
Lamola also cited China's Xi Jinping who has not been travelling much this year, instead sending Premier Li Qiang to represent him — including in South Africa.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will also be absent from the summit as there is an arrest warrant against him by the International Criminal Court over Russia's war on Ukraine.
The warrant obliges South Africa, a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court, to arrest Putin if he steps on its territory. Putin also missed the summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies in South Africa in 2023 for the same reason.
South Africa has used its presidency of the G20 to push for action to address the challenges of poor nations — such as securing financing to help countries facing the devastating effects of climate change, something independent experts estimate would require about $1 trillion a year by 2030.
On Tuesday, an expert panel's report called for the International Monetary Fund and G20 countries to adopt broad measures to refinance debt of poor nations.
The African Union, a G20 member, plans to speak for African countries facing climate change challenges and financial pressures, according to Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the chairperson of the African Union Commission.
Brian Kagoro, managing director at the think-tank Open Society Foundations, said that while the U.S. boycott is “regrettable,” what matters most is the substance of what Africa advances at the summit.
“If anything, the situation underscores the need to accelerate global governance reform, ensuring that all regions, including Africa, have a meaningful voice in setting global priorities,” Kagoro said.
Other powerful countries — including France, Germany and the United Kingdom — have backed the G20 summit and their leaders are expected to arrive in South Africa on Friday, ahead of the two-day event, with many bilateral talks expected on the sidelines of the summit.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has also confirmed his attendance.
“I will be there and I am totally committed to work within the G20, to move all the key reforms that are essential in the international financial system and to create the conditions for the development agenda, particularly in Africa, to be sustainable,” Guterres said while in Angola last week.
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the G20 summit in South Africa: https://apnews.com/hub/g20-summit
A gardener takes his lunch break as a massive cleanup job gets underway in anticipation of the upcoming G20 summit to be held in the South African economic capital, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
City park employee plant flowers along one of Johannesburg's major highway as a massive cleanup job gets underway in anticipation of the upcoming G20 summit to be held in the South African economic capital, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay)
A view of Alexandra township, with the Sandton financial district in the background, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments at 10 a.m. ET over the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to someone in the country illegally or temporarily.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Trump plans to be in attendance. He will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.
Every lower court to have considered the issue has found the order illegal and prevented it from taking effect. A definitive ruling by the nation’s highest court is expected by early summer.
Here’s the latest:
Sauer, Trump’s top Supreme Court lawyer, is at the lectern, defending the president’s birthright citizenship order. Trump is in the courtroom.
On American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, native-born children are considered “U.S. nationals” — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others.
American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections.
Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. In 2022, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal seeking to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa.
An Alaska appeals court is weighing whether to dismiss criminal charges against an Alaska resident born in American Samoa after she was elected to a local school board.
Crowds watched from the sidewalks as Trump’s motorcade drove along Constitution and Independence Avenues, passing the Washington Monument and the National Mall on the way to the court building.
Justice Felix Frankfurter, a native of Austria, was the last of six justices who were born abroad. The current court is American from birth.
Still, the citizenship issue hits close to home for some justices.
Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson are descended from enslaved people who eventually had their citizenship established by the 14th Amendment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s parents were born in Puerto Rico, where residents became citizens under a 1917 law enacted by Congress. The justice most closely tied to an immigrant is Alito, whose father was born in Italy.
Way back in 1841, former President John Quincy Adams represented a shipload of African men and women who had been sold into slavery in the famous Amistad case.
Former President William Howard Taft became chief justice nearly eight years after leaving the White House in 1913. Charles Evans Hughes left the Supreme Court for a presidential run in 1912, which he nearly won, then returned to the court in 1930 as chief justice.
In 1966, Richard Nixon argued his only Supreme Court case, which he lost.
Twenty-four Democratic state attorneys general put out a statement Wednesday morning saying they’re “proud to lead the fight against this unlawful order.”
While Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration scores of times, the plaintiffs in this case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups.
The Democratic attorneys filed court papers supporting their position. Twenty-five of their Republican counterparts filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the Trump administration.
The only state sitting this one out is New Hampshire.
More than 250,000 babies born in the U.S. each year would not be citizens, according to research from the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
The order would only apply going forward, the administration has said. But opponents have said a court ruling in Trump’s favor could pave the way for a later effort to take away citizenship from people who were born to parents who were not themselves U.S. citizens.
The president and first lady Melania Trump showed up for the court ritual marking the arrival of a new justice following the confirmations of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Justice Brett Kavanaugh a year later.
The ceremony for Trump’s third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump, who was no longer in office, did not attend.
Traditionally the president has avoided attending arguments to maintain distance between the government branches — since the executive officer’s presence is seen by many as a way to pressure the independent court to rule in their favor.
Given the unusual nature of it all — Trump’s presence in the courtroom spotlights how high the stakes are for him, as the court’s decision will have massive consequences on his longstanding promise to crack down on immigration.
Last year, Trump said that he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but he decided against it, saying it would have been a distraction.
Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, told the The Associated Press that Trump’s attending SCOTUS oral arguments signals how important the president views this case.
However, Trump’s presence “is unlikely to sway the justices,” Winkler said, adding that the SCOTUS justices “pride themselves in their independence, even if some agree with much of Trump’s agenda.”
The fanfare of Trump being in the courtroom will make for a different experience for the justices themselves, however, as “Trump’s presence will make the atmosphere a little bit more circus-like,” Winkler said.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer is making his ninth Supreme Court argument and second in as many weeks. Sauer’s biggest win to date was the presidential immunity decision that spared Trump from being tried for his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Sauer was a Supreme Court law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia early in his legal career.
ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, the child of Chinese immigrants, is presenting her second argument to the Supreme Court. In the first Trump administration, a 5-4 conservative majority ruled against Wang’s clients in another immigration case.
It’s not an April Fool’s joke. Alito was born this day in 1950. Only Thomas, who turns 78 in June, is older than Alito among the nine justices.
In the post-pandemic era, the other justices allow the 77-year-old Thomas, the longest-serving member of the court, to pose a question or two before the free-for-all begins.
In a second round of questioning, the justices ask questions in order of seniority. Chief Justice John Roberts, whose center chair makes him the most senior, gets the first crack.
The justices have routinely gone beyond the allotted time since returning to the courtroom following the Covid-19 pandemic.
A buzzer and the court marshal’s cry, “All rise,” signal the justices’ entrance from behind red curtains. The livestream won’t kick in for several minutes, until after the ceremonial swearing-in of lawyers to the Supreme Court bar.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington on Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
