[KANANASKIS, Alberta] Group of Seven leaders faced early challenges during meetings in Canada on Monday as US President Donald Trump said removing Russia from the former Group of Eight over a decade ago had been a mistake.
The once tight-knit group has struggled to find unity over conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as Trump overtly expresses support for Russian President Vladimir Putin and has imposed tariffs on many of the allies present.
G7 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the US, along with the European Union, are convening in the resort area of Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies until Tuesday.
Speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump said the former Group of Eight had been wrong to kick out Russia in 2014 after it annexed Crimea.
“This was a big mistake,” Trump said, adding he believed Russia would not have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had Putin not been ejected.
“Putin speaks to me. He doesn’t speak to anybody else … he’s not a happy person about it. I can tell you that he basically doesn’t even speak to the people that threw him out, and I agree with him,” Trump said.
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Though Trump stopped short of saying Russia should be reinstated in the group, his comments raise doubts about how much Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy can achieve when he meets the leaders on Tuesday.
“It was a rough start,” said Josh Lipsky, a former senior IMF official who now chairs the international economics department at the Atlantic Council. “This is not the way that Canada wanted the summit to start … But there’s time to get things back on track.”
European nations say they want to persuade Trump to back tougher sanctions on Moscow.
Zelenskiy said he planned to discuss new weapons purchases for Ukraine with Trump.
European officials said they hoped to use Tuesday’s meeting with Zelenskiy and Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte and next week’s NATO summit to convince Trump to toughen his stance.
In another early sign the group of democracies may struggle to reach agreement on key issues, a US official said Trump would not sign a draft statement calling for de-escalation of the Israel-Iran conflict.
A Canadian official, though, said the conflict would come up in bilateral meetings throughout the day and it was too early to speculate on the outcome of those conversations. A senior European diplomat echoed those comments, saying Trump had yet to make a decision.
Draft documents
Canada has abandoned any effort to adopt a comprehensive communique to avert a repeat of the 2018 summit in Quebec, when Trump instructed the US delegation to withdraw its approval of the final communique after leaving.
Leaders have prepared several draft documents seen by Reuters, including on migration, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals. None of them have been approved by the United States, however, according to sources briefed on the documents.
Without Trump, it is unclear if there will be any declarations, a European diplomat said.
Talks on Monday centered around the economy, advancing trade deals, and China. Another European diplomat said leaders agreed in early sessions that China is the real competitor and G7 allies should not paralyse themselves with trade conflicts. The leaders discussed expanding the G7 to include other democracies, the diplomat added.
Carney invited non-G7 members Mexico, India, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, as well as Ukraine.
Tariffs
Trump, who traveled to Canada with his top trade negotiators, is expected to discuss trade and tariffs with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia, among others, on the sidelines of the summit.
Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Monday they had finalised a trade deal reached between the two allies last month, making Britain the first country to agree to a deal for lower US tariffs.
Sources familiar with the planning said they are not expecting the completion of new trade deals during the G7 summit, however.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hoped there would be steps towards a solution to a tariff dispute with the United States, even if a solution itself could not be reached at the summit.
Carney said in a statement he had agreed with Trump that their two nations should try to wrap up a new economic and security deal within 30 days.
Trump said a new economic deal with host Canada was possible but stressed tariffs had to play a role, a position the Canadian government strongly opposes.
“Our position is that we should have no tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States,” said Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to Washington. REUTERS
