With the looming return of Trump, the mood at the 2024 G-20 summit was far from festive. RIO DE JANEIRO - The caipirinhas were flowing, the samba and fervo dancers were swaying and a light ocean breeze enveloped the VIP guests in Rio de Janiero. But as the Group of 20 (G-20) communique popped up online, the mood was far from festive.
The behind-the-scenes squabbling over language characterising wars in Ukraine and the Middle East had been abruptly shut down by an impatient host , Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. That left a bitter taste, particularly among the US and its allies. Within hours, leaders who oversee 85 per cent of the global economy awoke to news that Ukraine had fired American-made long-range missiles into Russia for the first time since Vladimir Putin invaded some 1,000 days earlier.
The Kremlin repeated its threat of a nuclear response, jolting markets. What was billed as a moment for “the West and the Rest” to show unity only served to show how quickly the guardrails are coming off the international rules-based order. North Koreans are fighting in Europe for the first time.
Israel is resisting US efforts to halt fighting with Hezbollah and Hamas. China is regularly conducting military exercises surrounding Taiwan. Nuclear threats are becoming commonplace.
And that’s even before Donald Trump returns to the White House. The sense of global disorder played out in Rio, most vividly when US President Joe Biden and two other Group of Seven (G-7.
