The 51st G7 Summit ended in Canada on Tuesday. Commenting on the results of the meeting, the world media emphasize that it was difficult for the G7 leaders to find common ground when discussing a number of issues, taking into account the behavior of US President Donald Trump. He left the summit ahead of schedule, having managed to disappoint his allies in Europe, who pushed him to increase sanctions pressure on Russia.
The leaders of Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States, France, Japan, as well as EU leaders met at the Canadian resort of Kananaskis amid ongoing hostilities in Ukraine, a sharp escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran, and disagreements between the United States and other G7 countries on the issue of duties. “The most important goal for the seven leading industrial countries of the world would be to reach an agreement and start acting,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who participated in such an event for the first time, said on the eve of the meeting.
Commentators, however, warned in advance that agreement on most issues was unlikely. Canada, the host of the summit, even refused to prepare a comprehensive statement following the meeting, fearing that Trump would refuse to approve it.
In this regard, the agreement on a joint statement by the leaders on the current situation in the Middle East came as a surprise. The text of the document, published late on Monday, called Iran “the main source of regional instability and terror” and emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense. The Heads of State and Government of the G7 reaffirmed their long-standing position that Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. They pledged to carefully monitor the impact of the conflict on international energy markets and, if necessary, take coordinated actions to ensure market stability.
The joint communique was agreed a few hours after the White House announced that Trump would return to Washington ahead of schedule due to the crisis in the Middle East and would withdraw from the G7 meetings on Tuesday. As a result, according to The Wall Street Journal, the US president canceled several negotiations on trade and global security. This included a meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning with Vladimir Zelensky, who was invited to the summit, hoping to discuss “the potential purchase of a defense package for Ukraine from the United States,” as he said at a press conference in Vienna the day before.
Trump himself wrote on his Truth Social network that he had not returned to Washington at all because of the “truce between Israel and Iran,” as Emmanuel Macron claimed, and accused the French president of spreading false information. “That’s not true! He has no idea why I’m heading to Washington right now, but it certainly has nothing to do with the truce,” Trump assured. According to him, we are talking about something “much more important.”
Speaking to reporters with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said that he had signed a trade agreement with London. However, the press was more interested in why the US president was not amenable to Europe’s persuasions and did not want to impose new sanctions against Russia.
“Europe says it, but they haven’t done it yet. Let them do it first, then we’ll see,” Trump replied, adding that sanctions against Russia cost the United States billions of dollars. “Don’t forget that sanctions are costing us a lot of money. Sanctions are not that simple. This is not just a one–way street,” he stressed.
Despite Trump’s fears that sanctions could prevent a truce between Russia and Ukraine, Starmer announced new restrictions against Russia. “We are working on a new package of sanctions, and I intend to work with all our G7 partners to reduce Russia’s energy revenues,” he said. According to Sky News, the British prime minister stressed the need to “use this moment” to increase economic pressure on Russia. Since the beginning of the CBO, the UK has already imposed sanctions against more than 2,300 individuals, companies and tankers of the so-called shadow fleet of the Russian Federation. On Tuesday, six organizations, four individuals and 20 vessels were added to the blacklist, which London considers to be linked to Russia.
According to Nadezhda Arbatova, head of the Department of European Political Studies at the IMEMO RAS, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney faced a difficult task at the G7 meeting to avoid repeating the negative experience of Trump’s visit to a similar summit in 2018. Then the US president came to the forum later, but left before it ended, criticizing Justin Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada, for his audacity and dissatisfaction with Washington’s trade tariffs.
“It creates a complete impression of deja vu. This time, Trump followed the previous pattern of behavior – he was late for the summit and left earlier, citing urgent business in connection with the conflict between Israel and Iran,” the expert emphasized in a conversation with NG.
“The main objective of the summit and Carney personally was to avoid a split between the United States and its allies and turn the meeting into a demonstration of Western solidarity in the face of new challenges to international security. In this regard, Carney tried to bring the differences over the trade war to the level of bilateral relations and to soften the agenda as much as possible, offering a discussion of Trump’s priority issues such as migration, mining of crucial minerals, security and drug trafficking. However, the Canadian Prime Minister’s diplomatic maneuvers failed to cement a deep rift in relations between the United States and its allies. With the exception of the G7’s joint statement condemning Iran’s nuclear aspirations, the participants failed to bring their positions closer on other issues, primarily on further support for Ukraine and relations with Russia,” Arbatova said.
She drew attention to the fact that Trump criticized Russia’s exclusion from the G8 in 2014, stressing that this was what led to the conflict in Ukraine. He also admitted that inviting China to the G7 is not a bad idea if “there are people to talk to,” leaving everyone wondering what that might mean.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin said it agreed with Trump that Russia’s exclusion from the G8 was wrong. However, according to Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, the current position of the Russian Federation is that “now the Seven has lost its practical significance for us.” This is due, in particular, to the fact that the share of the G7 countries in the global economy is steadily declining. If half a century ago, when the G7 was formed, it accounted for up to 70% of global GDP, now it is less than 30%.