G20 Summit Kicks Off In Rio Amid Global Tensions And US Policy Shifts

Leaders of the Group of 20 major economies began arriving on Monday at Rio de Janeiro’s Modern Art Museum for their annual summit, bracing for a shift in the global order with the return to power of US President-elect Donald Trump. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received the heads of government on a red carpet at the museum where they will meet through midday on Tuesday.

Their discussions of trade, climate change and international security will run up against the sharp US policy changes that Trump vows upon taking office in January, from tariffs to the promise of a negotiated solution to the war in Ukraine.

While US President Joe Biden arrives as a lame duck with just two months remaining in the White House, China’s President Xi Jinping will be a central player at a G20 summit riven with geopolitical tensions amid the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Diplomats drafting a joint statement for the summit’s leaders have struggled to hold together a fragile agreement on how to address the escalating Ukraine war, even a vague call for peace without criticism of any participants, sources said.

A massive Russian air strike on Ukraine on Sunday shook what little consensus they had established, with European diplomats pushing to revisit previously agreed language on global conflicts. The United States has also lifted prior limits on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-made weapons to strike deep into Russia.

Security in Rio de Janeiro has been strengthened with troops reinforcing police for the duration of the summit.

A Brazilian army patrol came under gunfire near a Rio de Janeiro slum in the hours before the summit began, police said. No one was injured in the incident by the hillside Cidade de Deus community some 20 km (12 miles) west of the G20 venue.

(With inputs from agency)

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