The G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Atlanta ended on Saturday without consensus on several critical global security issues, and the group will not release a joint communique. Instead, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who chaired the two days of talks under the United States' presidency of the group, will sum up the meeting in a chairman's statement.
Rubio had opened the talks with an appeal for unity. The divisions, diplomats said, ran most deeply over Russia's war with Ukraine, and also covered the United States and Israeli war against Iran, United States tariffs and Chinese actions in the South China Sea.
The tensions were visible from the first day. On Friday, Rubio cancelled the traditional group photo of the ministers after European diplomats objected to the inclusion of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and threatened to boycott or walk out of the picture. Lavrov, who had flown into Atlanta for the meeting, dismissed the row, telling reporters that if what matters most to other delegations is how they look in the family photo and who is standing next to them, that says it all.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas accused Lavrov of spreading lies about the Ukraine conflict. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, attending a G20 meeting as a guest for the first time, said he was not surprised the ministers failed to reach consensus.
Washington had set its own priority for the meeting: freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Black Sea and the South China Sea. China was represented by a deputy, Ma Zhaoxu, after Foreign Minister Wang Yi stayed away.
For American households, those sea lanes are not distant geography: a large share of the world's oil and goods moves through them, and keeping them open is what keeps fuel and prices steady at home. For all the division on show, the ministers agreed to try to overcome their differences and make a success of the G20 leaders' summit that President Donald Trump will host in Florida in December — with the United States still in the chair.
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