He United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, will receive the G20 foreign ministers this Friday in Atlanta, including the Russian Sergei Lavrov, for a two-day meeting marked by the war in Iran and new efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine.
The main objective of the meeting is to prepare for the G20 leaders’ summit that US President Donald Trump will host in December at his Doral golf club, on the outskirts of Miami.
The meeting is also being held in the final stretch of the campaign for next Tuesday’s midterm elections, in which the Republicans are at risk of retaining the majority in Congress.
Rubio participated last Tuesday, in an unusual way, in a Trump election rally to mobilize his voters in the face of polls that favor the Democrats due to the rise in prices derived from the unpopular war in Iran.
The Trump Administration is seeking a commitment from the G20 to guarantee freedom of navigation, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic route for oil trade blocked by the war with the Islamic Republic.
Washington also wants to address the situation in the Black Sea, affected by the war in Ukraine, and in the South China Sea, where it denounces Beijing’s expansionism.
Atlanta, known as the capital of the southern United States, is, according to the State Department, “the ideal setting for these conversations” due to its status as a “global center of diplomacy, connectivity and trade.”
Among those attending will be the Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mauro Vieira, in the midst of an upswing in tensions between the Trump and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva governments, after the United States welcomed Flávio Bolsonaro, a former presidential candidate involved in corruption accusations who fled Brazil after losing Sunday’s elections.
In addition, Lavrov will travel to the United States after the Russian Foreign Ministry denounced delays by Washington in granting visas to his delegation, a problem that, he assured, was resolved “at the last minute.”
Ukraine, which is not a member of the G20, has not been invited to the group’s meetings under the American presidency this year. Washington has, however, invited Poland, an ally whose incorporation as a permanent member it supports.
Lavrov’s visit comes amid renewed efforts by the White House to end the war in Ukraine, after more than four years of conflict: Trump sent his emissary Steve Witkoff last week to meet separately with the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump and Putin are also working to organize a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen (China) to address the war in Ukraine, which has caused Zelensky to be upset by his exclusion.
Putin is also invited to the December G20 leaders’ summit in Miami, although the Kremlin has conditioned his attendance on the development of the previous meeting in China.
The Russian president’s last participation in a G20 summit was in Japan, in 2019.
