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Russia’s finance minister was excluded from a “family photo” of global officials at the G20 summit in Asheville, North Carolina, after objections from multiple European countries that were blindsided by his appearance.
Anton Siluanov’s attendance at the meeting — his first physical appearance since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — was met with protest from European officials who have tried to isolate Moscow since President Vladimir Putin launched the war.
Two people familiar with the situation said Siluanov was ultimately uninvited from the photograph of attendees taken on Monday morning after most high-ranking European officials declined to be pictured alongside him.
German finance minister Lars Klingbeil told reporters in Asheville that he found Siluanov’s presence at the G20 “quite troubling”.
“I would have wanted greater clarity from the American side that he should not be received here as a normal guest,” he said.
US Treasury officials confirmed that secretary Scott Bessent met Siluanov at the summit. A spokesperson for the agency said Bessent had “a productive meeting with the Russian finance minister, and reinforced the president’s push for world peace”.
US, British and other western officials walked out of a meeting in April 2022 in protest at Siluanov’s appearance by video link.
The summit, which is being chaired by the US, has been billed by Treasury officials as an effort to promote growth, address what the US views as global economic imbalances and discuss better ways to restructure sovereign debt.
“A durable global economy cannot rest on beggar-thy-neighbour acts that stifle fair, market-based competition,” said Bessent, speaking from Asheville on Monday.
But the talks come as US President Donald Trump’s war in Iran helps fuel a global rise in borrowing costs that is adding billions of dollars to the debt of developed governments.
The US’s national debt hit a record $40tn earlier this month and the country’s bonds have sold off in recent weeks amid investor concern over the debt burden and whether policymakers will contain inflation pushed higher by Trump’s war.
The meetings opened hours after the US launched new air strikes on Iran, ending weeks of relative calm. Washington has also become embroiled this month in a potentially damaging trade war with Canada, one of its biggest trading partners.
Bessent has intervened in the US Treasury market in recent weeks, promising to buy bonds in an effort to push down yields and reduce borrowing costs.
