At G20 summit, Atlanta shone as host city amid geopolitical strife

From the outside, last week’s gathering of foreign ministers in Atlanta may have looked only like increased traffic from road closures, Midtown streets and rooftops filled with law enforcement and blaring sirens as VIPs whizzed through the city.

But inside the ballrooms of the Loews Atlanta Hotel, the city hosted some of the world’s most powerful diplomats from the Group of 20, who discussed global issues ranging from wars in Europe and the Middle East to the availability of fertilizer and other disrupted supply chains.

The presence of Russia’s foreign minister triggered controversy, particularly as Poland’s top diplomatic envoy attended the meeting for the first time as the U.S. pushed to make the nation a permanent G20 member.

The summit transpired with the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.

Ultimately, consensus out of the summit — on a range of issues — proved elusive.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the issues discussed at the forum “most certainly will have an impact not just on Atlanta, not just on the United States, but the entire world. And not just next week or next month — some of these are long-term issues.”

Throughout the two-day gathering, Rubio repeatedly praised Atlanta, saying the city was a great host and calling it “one of America’s great business and innovative hubs.”

Once the meetings wrapped on Halloween, Rubio took some of the foreign ministers to experience “the deep American tradition of U.S. football, and one of the greatest collegiate rivalries between the University of Georgia and the University of Florida,” a release from State Department noted.

At a Friday night reception, Rubio called the Georgia Aquarium “one of the treasures in our country,” and said Americans are building the “economy of the future” in Atlanta and across the South.

“It’s been an ideal location for us to not just showcase our country, but to focus on critical economic policy issues that are facing the world today,” he told reporters at a news conference.

The agenda for the G20 foreign ministers meeting was largely focused on the safe passage of vessels in international waters, energy security, supply chain resilience, global food supplies and Ebola.

While consensus eluded the G20 ministers and no joint communiqué was issued, the gathering in Atlanta did have a few notable moments.

It was the first time Poland had a representative at the meeting. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski laid out the difficulties of reaching common ground on some of the most contentious subjects.

“We have wars going on, and we have participants in those wars around the table,” Sikorski told reporters Friday. “So it’s very difficult to agree on a common line.”

The first Japanese-Russian diplomatic meeting in five years also happened here, between Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It was the first time two high-ranking officials from the countries had met since Russia invaded Ukraine. A summary of the meeting from Japan’s foreign minister centered on terse discussions, including over a Japanese journalist Russia detained last month.

Lavrov’s inclusion at the gathering caused controversy and was unwelcome by some of the diplomats, particularly European ministers who reportedly took issue with posing for the traditional “family photo” with him, leading to Rubio canceling the photo.