In a joint statement released on Friday following a two-day conference in South Africa, the finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations highlighted the need for central banks to be independent and promised to work together more, as emphasized in the G20 central bank independence statement.
In their first message since last October, a month before the U.S. President Donald Trump’s election victory led to his later tariff war, the ministers and central bankers talked about how conflict, trade tensions, and extreme weather events are making the global economy less stable.
The issue of central bank independence had hung heavily over the meeting in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban following Trump’s repeated berating of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting interest rates, attacks that have roiled global financial markets.
“The significance of this motherhood and apple pie communique is that it exists at all, though its sprawling nature once again underscores the need for thorough G20 streamlining,” said Mark Sobel, a former senior Treasury official who now serves as U.S. chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum.
“Its strong and welcome defence of central bank independence stood out, given President Trump’s misguided attacks on Chair Powell,” he said.
“Central banks are strongly committed to ensuring price stability, consistent with their respective mandates, and will continue to adjust their policies in a data-dependent manner. Central bank independence is crucial to achieving this goal,” the communique said.
South Africa’s deputy finance minister David Masondo told reporters that the meeting outcomes contained in the communique were “consented to by all members” and centred on “strategic macroeconomic issues” included in the G20 central bank independence statement. When members have been unable to reach consensus on a statement in the past, they have issued a summary or “chair’s statement” outlining various positions of members.
An official from the White House didn’t talk about Friday’s message directly, but they did say that when Washington takes over the G20 presidency, it would be “leaning towards a back to basics plan.”
The statement also said that the World Trade Organisation was important for trade concerns, but that it needed to be reformed.
Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, said of the fact that the G20 issued a communique: “This is a positive sign going into the year of the U.S. presidency. It shows some kind of momentum.”
While it referred to “extreme weather events and natural disasters” as economic challenges, the communique did not explicitly address climate change. The word “tariff” was notable by its absence from the document, which instead referred to “trade tensions”.
Trump’s tariffs have broken the rules for global commerce and made the economy look bad practically everywhere. Starting on August 1, new duties will go into effect in more than 20 nations. These tariffs will be 10% on all U.S. imports and as high as 50% on steel and aluminium, 25% on cars, and perhaps on medicines.
The statement was less than half the length of the October 2024 declaration, which included around 5,000 words.
South Africa’s slogan as president is “Solidarity, Equality, Sustainability,” and the country has tried to push an African agenda that includes issues like the high cost of capital and support for climate change action.
The finance ministers and central bank governors said in Friday’s communique that they were committed to addressing debt vulnerabilities in low- and middle-income countries in an effective, comprehensive and systematic manner.