This transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.

Thank you, thank you very much, Your Excellencies.

We will now open the floor to questions.

However, due to time constraints, you're only limited to two questions, I'm afraid. We'll start with, Henry, Henry.

Henry Foy from the Financial Times, President Ramaphosa to you, there's reports in,

your own state media that Donald Trump's administration now does want to take part in the G20.

Can you confirm whether they're true or not?

And related, you talked about predictable, reliable partners.

Do you think that the EU The EU has demonstrated it is now more of a reliable,

predictable partner than the US for South Africa and for other G20 nations.

And to the two EU presidents related to that,

you've talked about how Trump's presidency and the tariff war has made the EU look for new friends that it wasn't.

Working closely with, in the past, has the way Trump has dealt with the G20 and particularly South Africa helped make deals like today happen,

which, as you said, have come together in the last 8 months only. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, thank you very much. We We have received notice. From the United States.

A notice which we are still in discussions with them over. About A change of mind.

About participating in one shape, form, or other. In the summit. So the discussions are still ongoing.

This comes really At the late hour before the summit begins and so therefore we do need to engage in those types of discussions to see how practical it is and what it finally really means.

In a way we see this as a positive sign.

Very positive because As I've often said, boycott politics never work.

It's always best to be inside the tent. Than being outside of the tent. The tent is the G20. All countries are here.

And the United States being the biggest economy in the world.

Needs to be here, so it's pleasing to hear that. There is a change of approach.

And so we are still discussing how that will manifest. On the issue of relationships.

We as South Africa focus on the bilateral relationships that we have with various partners in the world.

And we are not in the business of comparing one relationship against another.

We deal with our relationships on a bilateral basis, and the multilateral side of relations happens either at regional bodies, continental bodies,

or global bodies which is at the multilateral level,

so It's not for me to even say this relationship is better than the other one.

What I can tell you, as I said earlier, is that Europe, the EU. Has been our partner for years. The relationship has matured. It's reliable.

It's predictable, and it's based on trust,

and we've used this relationship to resolve many problems that may have been regarded as intractable.

And so both of us have a deep commitment to making our relationship work on an ongoing basis despite.

Challenges or problems that may come our way.

So far it's been smooth sailing relationship between South Africa and the European Union. Thank you.

Look, first of all, we are very glad to be here.

First of all, to continue to work on our bilateral relationship with South Africa,

but also to participate in the G20 meeting.

The G20 is a very important platform of dialogue from different countries,

different people from different parts of the world.

And the European Union believes in this multilateral system, in the international rules-based order,

and we are very engaged in the multilateral system, United Nations G20, G7.

We support the reform of the trade in international trade organisation.

We are engaged in all international organisations and we are very engaged in weaving a very strong and diversified network of relationship.

During last year, I think we had more than 10 summits.

With the Central Asian countries, with Japan, with China, with Canada,

with the United Kingdom, well, I cannot remember we, we do, with South Africa.

Look, more than 10, and we will continue,

and Europe is sovereign in defining their own external policy.

And we are present where we believe that it's important to be present and to engage with our partners, with those who are friends,

with those who are allies, and also with those with which we have problems,

because the only way to solve problems is to talk about it.

I can add to what Antonio just said, I mean,

the initial wake-up call for the European Union.

To diversify and to look for reliable, reliable partners,

trusted partners was when we had the energy crisis and we all of a sudden realised our overdependencies of fossil fuels from Russia and Russia cut from one day to the next the supply of energy.

You all witnessed the severe energy crisis we went through.

And this was the initial trigger for us to understand you need to diversify.

That's important to have a network of suppliers and you need to trust.

And reliable suppliers, as we say, you always meet twice in life, so it's also so that on both sides there needs to be trust.

Then you can build good things as we just are showcasing here. For us it's very important. We are very committed to the WTO.

Of course there needs to be a reform of the WTO, but to have a rules-based trade worldwide is also important.

And of course now we are intensively negotiating with many.

Countries and regions of the world to different free trade agreements, you know that we finalised with Mexico, Mercosur, and Switzerland. We are about to finalise with India.

We're working with Australia, Malaysia, so others too.

For us, very important to have learned the lessons.

No more overdependency, no more reliance on one single supplier, but have a network of trusted partnerships all over the world. Thank you very much. Last question Thembekile.

Good evening, my name is Tsebilelele with Bloomberg News.

It seems like you went from struggling to pull together an EU South Africa summit for many years to having two in one year,

and it's been a very turbulent period, I think, globally, politically speaking.

Is there something to read into the frequency of these engagements all of a sudden?

Is there perhaps a political signal that you're trying to send by doubling down, as the president said on these ties? And then President Ramaphosa.

You said that the US request comes at the 11th hour, and you would have to look at the practicalities of accepting that request.

Does that mean that there's an opportunity or perhaps a possibility where it would not be practical to accept their request to be readmitted as it were,

to the Chiefs of Scout? Thank you.

Well, the United States is a member of the G20.

They are the original member of the G20, so they have the right to be here.

And all we will be seeking to do is to look at the various practicalities,

logistical and otherwise, for them to participate.

They have a seat at the round table as you will see on Saturday.

There is a seat for the United States,

so When President Trump said they are not coming, that seat still remained.

It was empty for a while,

but it will hopefully be occupied but we want to deal with all those practicalities. You should know that.

Because it's a gathering of G20 leaders, there is a lot of logistics that go into getting the leaders to come to the venue and to participate and how they will speak their speaking order and all that,

so those are matters that had not been preplanned because they pulled out.

So we need to understand precisely how all that will pan out so.

So we're clear, the United States has a right to participate in the G20 and much as they notify us at the 11th hour,

we still need to engage with them to understand fully what their participation at the 11th hour means and how it will manifest itself. Thank you. President Akosita.

He'll tell you that I got very little to say.

I think the President Ramaphosa answer said everything. Thank you very much.

That brings us to the end of this conference. Peter has a question. Peter, OK, Mr. President, I wonder if you could.

Clarify to the extent that you can, you,

you said you're trying to establish what exactly the role is of the USC wishes to play.

I understood that they have asked for the charge d'affair in Pretoria to participate in the handover ceremony,

but you, you're implying something much more, deep and extensive than that.

And if you could perhaps give some idea of exactly how far that participation might go, thank you.

Well Per Fabricius, you seem to know things as they happen.

So there was another communication which came as we were seated here in this er this bilateral meeting. So we're still digesting that one.

It's now seemingly moved away from the charge just receiving.

The role that they must now play to also something else that's precisely what we are now examining.

You tend to know too much.