he 2024 G-20 Summit was held in Brazil, on November 18th and 19th.  The 2023 Summit was held in India.  The 2025 G-20 Summit will be held in South Africa.

The G-20 countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the European Union, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, the African Union (i.e., the countries of the African continent), Argentina, In-donesia, India, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China.  

The list above is sorted in rough order from most free to least free.  Citizens of the U.S., British nations, Japan, and some countries in Europe have the most freedom.  People in several African countries, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China suffer the greatest oppression.

Other countries frequently are invited as guests to G-20 meetings.

G-20 Goals

The G-20 summit meetings are intended to address “major issues related to the global economy, such as international finan-cial stability, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development” according to Wikipedia.  

G-20 Sidesteps

News articles during the conference contained few remarks as to any accomplishments of the 2024 G-20 Summit.  They did, however, include numerous photos of President Biden with other world leaders, who apparently are commiserating with Biden as his Presi-dency nears its end.  

The impression was definitely that of commiserating with a fellow “good old boy” who is being pushed out by an unwelcome upstart interloper who does not share G-20 leaders’ political goals.  According to the G-20 President, the G-20 has ‘shock absorbers’ to deal with Trump’s return as U.S. President.  

While the G-20’s President called for an end to the Ukraine War, he did not specifically name Russia, a G-20 member.  Russia, of course, started that war by invading the Ukraine.

Russia was represented by it foreign minister. Vladimir Putin, Russia's dictator, remained in Russia and did not attend.

The G-20 was also suspiciously selective in calling for an end to the killing of Palestinians, while making no mention of those killed in Israel by the Palestinian and Hezbollah attacks.

The G-20 and the Economy

The G-20 clearly is more interested in preserving and increasing the power of those countries which attended.  Increasing the dominance and control of the current “status quo” is clearly the only interest shared by the many countries that make up the G-20, and that pervades the G-20 statements.

While the G-20 is supposedly intended to further economic growth worldwide, that stated intention is hiding a very different agenda.  

Greater prosperity for everyone depends on several factors which did not receive any significant mention during the G-20 Summit.

Greater economic well-being requires first greater freedom.  People must be free to act – free to build a business, free to take the actions needed to run a business, free to market their products, protected by a government whose actions foster such an environment.  The United States from its inception has always proven the truth of those facts.  

Just as clearly, at least half of the G-20 countries make such economic well-being virtually impossible, not only due to laws but also corruption and the ready use of force that destroys any incentive for economic growth.  No effort is made by the G-20 countries to roll back that destructive environment – let alone improve the environment in partially-free countries such as those in most of the European Union.

President Biden has clearly been anti-economic im-provement during his Presidency.  Po-litical power has always been his singular goal.  That ambition fits in very well with the ambitions of G-20 leaders who are themselves intent on political power.

The G-20 Summit vs. You

President Trump represents something opposite to G-20 leaders’ goals and desired status quo.  Whether Trump lives up to their expectations or not, the G-20 leaders do not favor the free-enterprise type of economic trend which Trump represents.

The Capitalism and anti-Socialism trend that Trump symbolizes is a trend that is the foundation for Americans’ freedom.  

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is not just an outdated slogan from a document now 250 years old.  Freedom – including economic freedom – is still the antithesis of politicians like President Biden and  his G-20 cohorts.