The Group of Seven summit is opening in Canada with a focus on trade, wars -- and not riling Trump
KANANASKIS, Alberta (AP) — When U.S. President Donald Trump last came to Canada for a Group of Seven summit, the enduring image was of him seated with his arms folded defiantly as then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel stared daggers at him.
If there is a shared mission at this year's G7 summit, which begins Monday in Canada's Rocky Mountains, it is a desire to minimize any fireworks at a moment of combustible tensions.
The 2018 summit ended with Trump assailing his Canadian hosts on social media as he departed on Air Force One, saying he had instructed the U.S. officials who remained in Quebec to oppose the G7 joint statement endorsed by the leaders of Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and, of course, Canada.
'I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!' Trump posted on the site then known as Twitter.
This time, Trump already has hit several dozen nations with severe tariffs that risk a global economic slowdown. There is little progress on settling the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and now a new and escalating conflict between Israel and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.
Add to all of that the problems of climate change, immigration, drug trafficking, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and China's continued manufacturing superiority and chokehold on key supply chains.
Asked if he planned to announce any trade agreements at the G7 as he left the White House on Sunday, Trump said: 'We have our trade deals. All we have to do is send a letter, 'This is what you're going to have to pay.' But I think we'll have a few, few new trade deals.'
At stake might be the survival of the G7 itself at a time when the Trump administration has sent mixed signals about whether the president will attend the November Group of 20 summit in South Africa.
What Trump opposed at the 2018 summit in Quebec wasn't just tariffs, but a focus on having alliances with a shared set of standards seeking to shape policies.
'The big dispute in Quebec were the references to the rules-based international order and that's where that famous photo comes from,' said Peter Boehm, Canada's counselor at the 2018 G7 summit in Quebec and a veteran of six G7 summits. 'I think it gave everyone the idea that G7s were maybe not business as usual.'
The German, U.K., Japanese and Italian governments have each signaled a belief that a friendly relationship with Trump this year can reduce the likelihood of outbursts.
'Well, I have got a good relationship with President Trump, and that's important,' U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday as he flew to Canada.
There is no plan for a joint statement this year from the G7, a sign that the Trump administration sees no need to build a shared consensus with fellow democracies if it views such a statement as contrary to its goals of new tariffs, more fossil fuel production and a Europe that is less dependent on the U.S. military.
'The Trump administration almost certainly believes that no deal is better than a bad deal,' said Caitlin Welsh, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank who was part of Trump's team for the G7 in Trump's first term.
The White House has stayed decidedly mum about its goals for the G7, which originated as a 1973 finance ministers' meeting to address the oil crisis and steadily evolved into a yearly summit that is meant to foster personal relationships among world leaders and address global problems.
The G7 even briefly expanded to the G8 with Russia as a member, only for Russia to be expelled in 2014 after annexing Crimea and taking a foothold in Ukraine that preceded its aggressive 2022 invasion of that nation.
Trump will have at least three scheduled bilateral meetings during the summit with other world leaders while in Canada, staring on Monday morning with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. The U.S. president is also expected to have bilateral meetings with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to an administration official.
The U.S. president has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos, all of which have disproportionately hit Japan. Trump is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period set by him would expire.
The United Kingdom reached a trade framework with the U.S. that included quotas to protect against some tariffs, but the 10% baseline would remain as the Trump administration is banking on tariff revenues to help cover the cost of its income tax cuts.
Canada and Mexico face separate tariffs of as much as 25% that Trump put into place under the auspices of stopping fentanyl smuggling, through some products are still protected under the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Trump's first term.
The Trump administration has insisted that its broad tariffs will produce trade agreements that box out China, though it's unclear how antagonizing trade partners would make them want to strengthen their reliance on the U.S. Carney, the Canadian leader, has been outspoken in saying his country can no longer look to the U.S. as an enduring friend.
That might leave Trump with the awkward task of wanting to keep his tariffs in place while also trying to convince other countries that they're better off siding with the U.S. than China.
'Trump will try to coordinate the group against China's economic coercion,' Josh Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, wrote in an analysis. 'But the rest of the leaders may turn back to Trump and say that this kind of coordination, which is at the heart of why the G7 works, would be easier if he weren't imposing tariffs on his allies.'
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Boak reported from Calgary, Alberta. Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
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CNN
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Analysis: Trump's strike on Iran marks a momentous moment — and gamble — for the world
Donald Trump has thrust Iran, the Middle East, the United States and his own presidency across a fateful threshold by attacking Tehran's nuclear program. A midsummer night in June 2025 could come to be remembered as the moment the Middle East changed forever; when the fear of nuclear annihilation was lifted from Israel; when Iran's power was neutered and America's soared. But if Trump's gamble fails to destroy Iran's nuclear program — despite his claim to have 'obliterated' it with US air strikes — an often-lawless president could have set the United States and the world on a disastrous course. The risk now is that the Iranian regime responds by attacking US forces, targets or civilians in the region and the conflict escalates into a full-scale war. The president has therefore made a huge wager on global security and his own legacy. He has no way of knowing how the consequences will play out after lining up the US squarely behind Israel's attack on Iran. The president who came power vowing to end wars looks as though he may have started another one. Trump on Saturday night warned Iran's leaders that if they didn't absorb the American assault by B-2 bombers on three key nuclear sites — and do nothing — far worse is to come. 'Iran, the bully of the Mideast, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater,' Trump said in a Saturday evening address from the White House, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The US airstrikes represent a ruthless and unilateral display of US military might and presidential power and a stunning culmination of 45 years of poisoned US relations with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. But it's easy to start new wars; it's much harder to end them. In the Middle East, especially, the tactical assumptions of US presidents that they can contain the fallout of 'shock and awe' military action often get exposed as tragically naive. Trump — who has constantly pushed against constraints on presidential power at home — sent US forces to war without acquiring the consent of Congress or properly preparing the American people, and after declining to enlist allies. On Thursday, he said he'd make a decision on what to do about Iran within two weeks — but in the end, he didn't wait that long to strike. The president also did not present evidence of his claims that Iran was weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon to the public or to the rest of the world. And he repeatedly dismissed assessments from his own intelligence community that Iran was still years away from a weapon. And he has no way of knowing for sure what comes next. 'If anyone tells you that they know where this is going, the good optimistic (possibilities) or the most pessimistic … they have no idea what they are talking about,' Brett McGurk, a senior US official who worked for Republican and Democratic administrations on the Middle East, told CNN's Anderson Cooper. 'Nobody knows,' said McGurk, who is now a CNN global affairs analyst. The short-term questions now concern the capacity and willingness of Iran to hit back against US targets in the Middle East and elsewhere. And despite Trump's declaration of total success for the mission, it is unclear whether the US strikes will have eradicated all of Iran's stocks of enriched uranium, which it might have hidden, and which it might still be able to use to make a rudimentary nuclear device in the future. No senior US leader wanted Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But such unknowns were some of the reasons why Trump's recent predecessors chose not to take the massive risk of striking Irandespite years of proxy warfare between the two powers, including Tehran's support for militias that were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US troops in Iraq. Administration officials say that Trump does not view airstrikes against Iran as tantamount to the US assaults on Iraq and Afghanistan that led the United States into wars from which it took 20 years to extricate. Still, Iran now gets the chance to decide how to respond and whether it embroils the US in a new war. The immediate danger is that, even in its weakened state after days of Israeli air strikes, Iran could attack US bases, personnel, and even civilians in the Middle East and elsewhere — and drag American into a bloody conflagration. Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has now been comprehensively humiliated on an issue — Iran's self-declared right to enrich uranium — that is regarded as central to his regime and his nation's prestige. It's therefore hard to imagine that a spiritual leader who is the guardian of the revolution will do nothing to respond. But Trump is warning Iran will hit back at its peril. 'There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left,' Trump said in his address. Despite the serious degradation of its missile arsenal by Israeli strikes — and of its proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, which would once have rained missiles on Israel in response to strikes on Iran — Tehran does have options. It could seek to provoke a global energy crisis by closing down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit choke point for oil exports. It could target US allies in the Gulf. It may seek to weaponize proxies in Iraq and Syria to attack US troops and bases in the region. Any of these options would inevitably drag the United States into reprisals that would risk setting off a full-scale US-Iran war. The political impact of Trump's strikes inside Iran is also unclear. Some experts wonder if it could set off political eruptions that threaten the survival of Iran's revolutionary regime. Israel has made little secret of the fact that that it hopes its onslaught will cause the downfall of a government that has threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the map. But such a collapse of the government could lead to an even more hostile and dangerous regime, perhaps led by elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. If the Iranian state were to dissolve, civil war could break out and disastrous instability could spread far beyond Iran's borders. The fear for many Iranians will be that a humiliated regime will respond by doubling down on repression against its own people. The desperate legacy of the Iraq and Afghan wars — which opened with spectacular US military successes but then went on for years, killing and maiming thousands of Americans — hung over the prospect of US military action. It took the best part of two decades for the US to find a way out of those conflicts. Successive presidents have wanted to divert resources away from the Middle East to Asia and the challenge posed by China, a rising superpower. The Iran conflict doesn't have to turn into a repeat of those wars. The Middle East has changed in recent months at lightning pace. Iran's regional power has been seriously eroded by Israel military action following the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. And predictions that Trump's killing of Iranian defense chief Qasem Soleimani in his first term would ignite a regional inferno did not come true. But Trump has set the United States on a new road with an uncertain end. He ultimately decided that the risk posed to Israel, the United States and the world from a potential Iranian nuclear bomb was more disastrous than the cascade of consequences that could be unleashed by an attempt to stop it. Trump's action will only deepen concerns of critics who believe Trump is grasping for unconstitutional, unchecked power that is antithetical to US democracy. After all, the president has initiated a new conflict at a time when Iran did not pose a direct threat to the United States. Trump's record of serial lying and eroding of the mechanisms of US democracy will also make it far harder to convince the public that he did the right thing. Trump has now also set a precedent for unilateral American action that potentially infringes on international law and the principles of the US-led international system. It is likely to be used by strongmen and tyrants everywhere to justify unilateral military action against smaller nations. Trump is also testing his standing with his ultra-loyal political support. He has now repudiated one of his few previously rigid political principles — that the era of US presidents launching new wars in the Middle East on the basis of questionable intelligence is over. The potential of a US strike on Iran had already split the MAGA movement. That said, Trump has also long been consistent that he'd not allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb. The American assault on Iran's nuclear plants, however, represents a massive triumph for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been pushing for the military eradication of the sites for decades. Netanyahu effectively started a war against Iran just over a week ago that he knew that Israel could not finish, since it lacks the bunker-busting bombs the US used on Saturday night. He bet, correctly, that after Israel disabled Iran's air defenses, Trump would take the chance to try to wipe out Iran's nuclear program once and for all. Trump's decision to strike Iran set off an immediate political storm in the US. Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill immediately offered their backing. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer praised Trump in statements. 'The military operations in Iran should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says,' Johnson said. But top Democrats accused him of breaking the law, infringing the Constitution and plunging the US into a new Middle East conflict. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — who, like other Democratic leaders, was not informed before the strike — slammed Trump's decision to strike Iran, 'without consulting Congress, without a clear strategy, without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community, and without explaining to the American people what's at stake.'
CNN
6 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: Trump's strike on Iran marks a momentous moment — and gamble — for the world
Donald Trump has thrust Iran, the Middle East, the United States and his own presidency across a fateful threshold by attacking Tehran's nuclear program. A midsummer night in June 2025 could come to be remembered as the moment the Middle East changed forever; when the fear of nuclear annihilation was lifted from Israel; when Iran's power was neutered and America's soared. But if Trump's gamble fails to destroy Iran's nuclear program — despite his claim to have 'obliterated' it with US air strikes — an often-lawless president could have set the United States and the world on a disastrous course. The risk now is that the Iranian regime responds by attacking US forces, targets or civilians in the region and the conflict escalates into a full-scale war. The president has therefore made a huge wager on global security and his own legacy. He has no way of knowing how the consequences will play out after lining up the US squarely behind Israel's attack on Iran. The president who came power vowing to end wars looks as though he may have started another one. Trump on Saturday night warned Iran's leaders that if they didn't absorb the American assault by B-2 bombers on three key nuclear sites — and do nothing — far worse is to come. 'Iran, the bully of the Mideast, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater,' Trump said in a Saturday evening address from the White House, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The US airstrikes represent a ruthless and unilateral display of US military might and presidential power and a stunning culmination of 45 years of poisoned US relations with Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. But it's easy to start new wars; it's much harder to end them. In the Middle East, especially, the tactical assumptions of US presidents that they can contain the fallout of 'shock and awe' military action often get exposed as tragically naive. Trump — who has constantly pushed against constraints on presidential power at home — sent US forces to war without acquiring the consent of Congress or properly preparing the American people, and after declining to enlist allies. On Thursday, he said he'd make a decision on what to do about Iran within two weeks — but in the end, he didn't wait that long to strike. The president also did not present evidence of his claims that Iran was weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon to the public or to the rest of the world. And he repeatedly dismissed assessments from his own intelligence community that Iran was still years away from a weapon. And he has no way of knowing for sure what comes next. 'If anyone tells you that they know where this is going, the good optimistic (possibilities) or the most pessimistic … they have no idea what they are talking about,' Brett McGurk, a senior US official who worked for Republican and Democratic administrations on the Middle East, told CNN's Anderson Cooper. 'Nobody knows,' said McGurk, who is now a CNN global affairs analyst. The short-term questions now concern the capacity and willingness of Iran to hit back against US targets in the Middle East and elsewhere. And despite Trump's declaration of total success for the mission, it is unclear whether the US strikes will have eradicated all of Iran's stocks of enriched uranium, which it might have hidden, and which it might still be able to use to make a rudimentary nuclear device in the future. No senior US leader wanted Iran to get a nuclear weapon. But such unknowns were some of the reasons why Trump's recent predecessors chose not to take the massive risk of striking Irandespite years of proxy warfare between the two powers, including Tehran's support for militias that were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US troops in Iraq. Administration officials say that Trump does not view airstrikes against Iran as tantamount to the US assaults on Iraq and Afghanistan that led the United States into wars from which it took 20 years to extricate. Still, Iran now gets the chance to decide how to respond and whether it embroils the US in a new war. The immediate danger is that, even in its weakened state after days of Israeli air strikes, Iran could attack US bases, personnel, and even civilians in the Middle East and elsewhere — and drag American into a bloody conflagration. Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has now been comprehensively humiliated on an issue — Iran's self-declared right to enrich uranium — that is regarded as central to his regime and his nation's prestige. It's therefore hard to imagine that a spiritual leader who is the guardian of the revolution will do nothing to respond. But Trump is warning Iran will hit back at its peril. 'There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left,' Trump said in his address. Despite the serious degradation of its missile arsenal by Israeli strikes — and of its proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, which would once have rained missiles on Israel in response to strikes on Iran — Tehran does have options. It could seek to provoke a global energy crisis by closing down the Strait of Hormuz, a vital transit choke point for oil exports. It could target US allies in the Gulf. It may seek to weaponize proxies in Iraq and Syria to attack US troops and bases in the region. Any of these options would inevitably drag the United States into reprisals that would risk setting off a full-scale US-Iran war. The political impact of Trump's strikes inside Iran is also unclear. Some experts wonder if it could set off political eruptions that threaten the survival of Iran's revolutionary regime. Israel has made little secret of the fact that that it hopes its onslaught will cause the downfall of a government that has threatened to wipe the Jewish state off the map. But such a collapse of the government could lead to an even more hostile and dangerous regime, perhaps led by elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. If the Iranian state were to dissolve, civil war could break out and disastrous instability could spread far beyond Iran's borders. The fear for many Iranians will be that a humiliated regime will respond by doubling down on repression against its own people. The desperate legacy of the Iraq and Afghan wars — which opened with spectacular US military successes but then went on for years, killing and maiming thousands of Americans — hung over the prospect of US military action. It took the best part of two decades for the US to find a way out of those conflicts. Successive presidents have wanted to divert resources away from the Middle East to Asia and the challenge posed by China, a rising superpower. The Iran conflict doesn't have to turn into a repeat of those wars. The Middle East has changed in recent months at lightning pace. Iran's regional power has been seriously eroded by Israel military action following the Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. And predictions that Trump's killing of Iranian defense chief Qasem Soleimani in his first term would ignite a regional inferno did not come true. But Trump has set the United States on a new road with an uncertain end. He ultimately decided that the risk posed to Israel, the United States and the world from a potential Iranian nuclear bomb was more disastrous than the cascade of consequences that could be unleashed by an attempt to stop it. Trump's action will only deepen concerns of critics who believe Trump is grasping for unconstitutional, unchecked power that is antithetical to US democracy. After all, the president has initiated a new conflict at a time when Iran did not pose a direct threat to the United States. Trump's record of serial lying and eroding of the mechanisms of US democracy will also make it far harder to convince the public that he did the right thing. Trump has now also set a precedent for unilateral American action that potentially infringes on international law and the principles of the US-led international system. It is likely to be used by strongmen and tyrants everywhere to justify unilateral military action against smaller nations. Trump is also testing his standing with his ultra-loyal political support. He has now repudiated one of his few previously rigid political principles — that the era of US presidents launching new wars in the Middle East on the basis of questionable intelligence is over. The potential of a US strike on Iran had already split the MAGA movement. That said, Trump has also long been consistent that he'd not allow Iran to get a nuclear bomb. The American assault on Iran's nuclear plants, however, represents a massive triumph for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been pushing for the military eradication of the sites for decades. Netanyahu effectively started a war against Iran just over a week ago that he knew that Israel could not finish, since it lacks the bunker-busting bombs the US used on Saturday night. He bet, correctly, that after Israel disabled Iran's air defenses, Trump would take the chance to try to wipe out Iran's nuclear program once and for all. Trump's decision to strike Iran set off an immediate political storm in the US. Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill immediately offered their backing. House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer praised Trump in statements. 'The military operations in Iran should serve as a clear reminder to our adversaries and allies that President Trump means what he says,' Johnson said. But top Democrats accused him of breaking the law, infringing the Constitution and plunging the US into a new Middle East conflict. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — who, like other Democratic leaders, was not informed before the strike — slammed Trump's decision to strike Iran, 'without consulting Congress, without a clear strategy, without regard to the consistent conclusions of the intelligence community, and without explaining to the American people what's at stake.'
Fox News
11 minutes ago
- Fox News
Retired general tells CNN he's 'impressed' by Trump striking Iran, says American lives potentially saved
Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Saturday that he was impressed by the U.S. strikes against Iran's nuclear sites, praising President Donald Trump's use of "deception and trickery." "I'm fascinated and, candidly, I'm impressed," he said. "I never really could understand what the two-week pause meant, or what it was for, what was left to negotiate, what were we going to expect the Iranians to offer? In many ways, it was much like a Trump deal. I mean, he's trying to make a deal to buy an apartment, but all of a sudden the apartment was destroyed, so where's the negotiation? So I think the use of deception and trickery in this case, first of all, was successful. But second of all, saved the potential loss of American lives." Trump announced Saturday that the U.S. had struck three Iranian nuclear sites. The president said the Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities were "totally obliterated" during a brief address from the White House. Cooper also asked Kimmitt about the effects and what U.S. forces should be worried about in the region. "They should be very concerned," Kimmitt said. "Look, the Iranians are down, but they're not out. The fact remains is the proxy networks, while diminished, are still lethal. You take a look at the significant number of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq alone, they can put up quite a fight and put a significant amount of American interests, American troops, American infrastructure at risk." Kimmitt served as the assistant Secretary of State for political-military affairs under former President George W. Bush. The president addressed the nation following the U.S. military's strikes on the trio of Iranian nuclear facilities. "A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan," he said. "Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success." He said Iran was now backed into a corner and "must now make peace." The president also threatened far greater attacks against Iran if the country didn't come to the table.
