Growth, Growth, Growth at the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting?

The G20’s finance ministers are gathering in Asheville, North Carolina, but the meeting is drawing an unusually broad cast of power brokers. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has invited counterparts from the other 19 members, while central-bank officials, technology executives and Wall Street leaders are also expected to attend.

The United States holds the group’s rotating presidency for the first time since 2009. Bessent’s central message is growth, with discussions focused on how to accelerate economic expansion and reduce global imbalances. The latter phrase refers in part to concerns that countries such as China could push excess production into foreign markets.

The technology industry will have its own meeting with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and former White House AI czar David Sacks. OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Meta executive Dina McCormick Powell are expected to press other countries against imposing overly restrictive rules on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Wall Street will be represented by J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon. Executives from Eli Lilly, John Deere and Medtronic are also due to attend, including David Ricks, John May and Geoff Martha.

The composition and agenda mark a sharp contrast with recent G20 presidencies. Indonesia, India, Brazil and South Africa each placed climate change, development, equality and inclusion prominently on their agendas. The United States boycotted meetings during South Africa’s presidency and excluded South Africa from participation this year. The Asheville meeting therefore presents the G20 as a forum shaped by competing priorities, with the U.S. pushing a broad economic and political display around its call for growth and fewer constraints.