The United States takes its turn chairing the G20 finance track this week under distinctly awkward conditions.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh are hosting counterparts in the North Carolina mountains, following a deputies meeting held over the weekend, with the formal agenda covering economic growth, global imbalances, sovereign debt restructuring, banking regulation and energy security.
Asheville was chosen deliberately.
The city was devastated by Hurricane Helene in September 2024, a storm that killed more than 250 people and caused close to $80 billion (€69bn) in damage from Florida to the Carolinas, and Bessent has cited its rebuilding as a fitting backdrop for talks about economic growth.
“We want the rest of the world to come along with our growth agenda, whether it’s deregulation, the energy independence […]” he said, adding that “the world has this mountain of debt, and we do have to grow our way out of it,” confirming public debt will feature prominently in the discussions.
The setting may prove easier than the substance.
Trade friction between the US and Canada escalated after negotiations broke down, hostilities with Iran have resumed through economic rather than military means, and Warsh arrives days after a hawkish first Jackson Hole address that sharply raised the odds of a US rate rise this month.
Both meetings serve as groundwork for the leaders’ summit at Trump National Doral in Miami on 14 and 15 December, and come weeks before Xi Jinping is expected in Washington on 24 September.
Bessent’s push on Iran
The US Treasury Secretary intends to use bilateral meetings to build support for squeezing Tehran, and stated that Washington will sanction another bank this week, though he declined to name it.
“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent told AP.
“We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop,” he added.
The campaign’s opening move came on Friday, when the US Treasury proposed a rule that would cut the Emirati branches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest lender, off from the American financial system.
By stopping short of full sanctions, the US administration appeared to signal reluctance to punish major trading partners that still deal with Iran, notably China and India.
On Beijing specifically, Bessent said “all options are on the table” over its continued oil purchases, while dismissing suggestions of hesitancy as “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on.”
The meetings are also being held under unusual media restrictions, after the US Treasury barred certain reporters from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg from covering them.
The New York Times called the move “not just another disturbing effort by the administration to undermine independent journalism, but a blatant attempt to evade public scrutiny.”
The department has not explained its decision, though Bessent told the AP that “it has nothing to do with point of view.”
Who speaks for Europe at the G20
The EU is represented by Ireland’s Tánaiste and Finance Minister Simon Harris, who holds the role by virtue of Ireland’s EU presidency since 1 July, alongside ECB President Christine Lagarde and Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
Harris said he was looking forward to “the first Ministerial meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors since Ireland assumed the Presidency of the EU,” describing the forum as a place where the largest economies “can exchange views and work towards international economic and financial stability.”
The Irish minister’s stated priority reflects the conflict shaping much of the agenda at this G20 meeting.
Among the EU’s concerns, Harris listed “energy security and ensuring we have secure and resilient energy supplies at a time of severe volatility caused by the conflict in the Middle East.”
He will also hold bilateral meetings with counterparts from G20 member states as Ireland has also been invited as a guest for the December leaders’ summit in Miami.
Additional sources • AP