G20 foreign ministers ended two days of talks in Atlanta on Saturday without a joint communique, leaving Washington to issue its own chair's summary. Members remained split over the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The meeting was chaired by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had asked his counterparts to coordinate responses to a run of crises. Rubio told the room that ministers were "tasked, on behalf of the nations that we serve, to work together," citing pressure on energy and food supplies, trade and navigation, The Hindu BusinessLine reported.
A State Department official said the four ministerial meetings staged this year had yielded partial agreement, though gaps remained to be closed before leaders gather in Miami on December 14 to 16. South China Morning Post reported that Rubio pressed delegates to harden supply chains and protect strategic shipping routes.
Rubio has pushed Pax Silica, a plan to rally G20 members anxious about Beijing's hold on rare earths and other critical minerals. Analysts cited in the BusinessLine report expect movement on that front only after the summit, noting a declaration on overcapacity in industry that a group of trade ministers endorsed once the wider membership could not agree.
"The right test is whether the US can build cooperation with partners when all-member consensus appears to be out of reach," said Elaine Dezenski of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unsettled several delegations, as NPR reported. Rubio's official schedule carried no group photo, after European ministers made clear they would not stand alongside him. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told reporters there would be none: "In no case will there be a family photo with European partners and Mr. Lavrov together."
Canada's Anita Anand skipped the opening plenary, and an aide said she had been delayed by a Canada-EU gathering in Montreal. Washington, which holds the rotating presidency, did not invite South Africa's representative. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X that she would push for greater backing for Kyiv and for advances on a special tribunal and a claims commission.
Rubio and Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira held a short exchange on the margins and will meet again ahead of the Miami summit, a person briefed on the plan told The Straits Times. A Brazilian official minimised the dispute over Brasilia's refusal to confirm Trump's ambassador pick and over the visa granted to Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who lost his race to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. "We're clearly not politicizing the issue," the official said.
Heidi Crebo-Rediker, once the State Department's chief economist, said the body is now more divided than she can recall, because G7 governments no longer turn up with a shared position. Trilateral technical negotiations involving Moscow, Kyiv and Washington are due in Abu Dhabi in November.