The History, and Significance, of the 50th G7 Summit

Yahoo

a day ago

Flags from Canada, France, German, Italy, Japan, The United Kingdom, and The United States. Credit - Streetoncamara—Getty Images
On June 15, President Donald Trump and world leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom will meet in Kananaskis, Canada for the annual Group of Seven (G7) Meeting.
The 2025 G7 Summit will be an important opportunity for leaders of key Western democracies to resolve current trade issues, establish cooperative strategies for managing the rapid development of technologies such as AI, and address rising tensions with China and Russia.
For instance, the Europeans see the meeting as a test of whether the U.S. is serious about putting more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin by lowering the G7 ceiling price for buying Russian oil from $60 per barrel to $50.
This G7 meeting will be the 50th meeting of this kind. The first occurred in 1975 in Rambouillet, France. Back then, it was then known as the G6 meeting. Canada was invited a year later. I remember the Rambouillet Summit vividly, because I was fortunate enough to be there.
As Kissinger's then 32-year-old economic advisor, I joined the Rambouillet Meeting as the notetaker and advisor to President Gerald Ford.
Having now participated in many Summits, I have come to recognize their value. They seldom produce big breakthroughs, but they can reduce friction, forge common understandings, and set the direction towards progress which larger and more unwieldy institutions cannot.
But due to the changing global order—specifically, the economic rise of China and countries from the Global South—some have come to question the relevance of the G7 Summit.
Here's what the first meetings can teach us about the importance of the G7 meeting ahead and about the G7 as an institution:
The Group was designed to unify, and develop common strategies among, the leaders of these countries to address formidable economic problems they faced at the time. For instance, each was recovering then from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo aimed at Western nations that had supported Israel in the 1973 War.
They were also adjusting to the recent collapse of the Bretton Woods Monetary System, which saw the U.S. cease convertibility of the dollar into gold and impose a 10% tariff as leverage to compel other industrialized countries to reduce America's trade deficit. (This came to be known as 'the Nixon Shock,' and was a source of considerable friction between the U.S. and its allies.)
At the time, most of these countries were suffering from extremely high inflation coupled with low growth and high unemployment—otherwise known as, "stagflation." The West also was in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
In April,1973, finance ministers of the U.S., UK, France and what was still West Germany began a series of private meetings in the White House Library to discuss remedies to these problems. Shortly after, Japan was added to what came to be known as 'the Library Group'. George Shultz, then U.S. Treasury Secretary, was the American member.
In mid-1975, French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, who had formerly been finance minister and thus attended these meetings, suggested that the heads of State of Library Group countries meet to discuss these issues. It was to be strictly an Economic Summit to avoid any possible overlap with NATO.
He quickly received support from German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Germany's former finance minister, and President Ford. The basic premise was that given the seriousness of the issues at hand, the heads of State themselves needed to work out a coordinated strategy. Besides, given that most of the leaders were largely unfamiliar with one another, a meeting would cultivate a spirit of trust and collaboration.
Giscard volunteered a 14th Century Castle, Château de Rambouillet, in a small country town about an hour southwest of Paris, as the meeting place. He and Schmidt proposed that only the leaders themselves participate at the Summit. However, other countries (including the U.S.) thought leaders should be accompanied by their Foreign and Finance ministers. This idea was briefly met with resistance from France and Germany, but they soon accepted.
The next point of contention was who else should be invited; Italy's Prime Minister Aldo Moro made a passionate case that he was fighting off a rise in pressure from the Italian Communist Party, and that his exclusion would demonstrate lack of Western support. His urgent pleas carried the day, and he was invited. The U.S. urged the French to invite Canada, but Giscard drew the line at that—although the following year, when the U.S. hosted the event, Ford unilaterally invited Prime Pierre Minister Trudeau.
Another point of contention was notetakers. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was adamant that there be a U.S. notetaker—as there was at all other Presidential meetings at home and abroad. The French resisted this because they felt it further enlarged, and this compromised the intimacy of, the meeting. But the U.S. had an ally across the channel. The British had a practice that the Cabinet Secretary, at the time the highly respected John Hunt, took notes at all cabinet meetings and Prime Minister Wilson insisted that he do so at this meeting as well. The French ultimately agreed that countries could have their notetakers.
Since I was Kissinger's economic advisor and had done a lot of the planning and policy papers for the Summit, I was designated to accompany Ford as notetaker.
Our presence ultimately became an asset: the leaders, having originally decided that there would be no communique, then decided on a "declaration." Because we had notes on and participated in all the sessions, Hunt and I were asked to help draft the final declaration.
There was no formal agenda, although the top-of-mind issues were clear. Each country had a very small delegation of four of five members. So this turned out to be the highly effective and informal affair that Giscard and Schmidt wanted.
While no breakthroughs were predicted or expected, the leaders reached a consensus in several areas to increase currency stability, restore growth without triggering new inflation, and reduce trade barriers.
This meeting, at the time, was considered a one-off affair. There was no expectation that it would become an annual event. However, the following year, Ford and his advisors decided that another Summit should take place and sent out invitations to his counterparts—including to Canada.
Over time, the organization also began to discuss political issues, in addition to economic issues.
Fifty years later, the major issues facing leaders have changed dramatically and the world faces a very different global power structure. Notedly, the dramatic rise of China and the growing role of India and other countries from the Global South. Many believe that the rise of new global players has diminished the G7's significance.
But even with these changes, the G7 countries together still have considerable influence. That is, if G7 members can work together, settle their trade differences, and exercise unified leadership on key international issues. Among those international issues are responding to China's formidable economic rise, Russia's cyber and militaristic agressions, and the heightening tech race.
Given the intense strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China, leaders will undoubtedly discuss how G7 countries can individually and collectively address the deepening rifts between the world's democracies and the rising authoritarian world.
Leaders will likely discuss ways to collectively resist Beijing's practices in areas such as trade, cyber attacks, and supply chain interruptions. They will also likely discuss potential areas of convergence such as addressing climate change and restoring scientific and medical research collaboration.
A highly aggressive Russia, which has launched a devastatingly harsh and lethal war in Ukraine, will also pose a continuing challenge to G7 members. The issue of tightening sanctions on Russia is bound to be a major topic. By demonstrating resolution on this issue, and political unity domestically and with one another and other like-minded countries, more decisive pressure can be applied to the Kremlin.
And then there is the technology revolution. Though advancements in AI, quantum computing, digital commerce, biosciences, and drones have changed virtually every facet of our lives since the G7 first met, international regulations have failed to keep up.
One possible approach is to establish a series of small expert G7 groups to monitor developments in a few of these areas, create an outline of common regulatory norms and guard rails, foster exchanges among experts, enable their regulators to learn from each other, and provide a venue for national leaders to connect.
As the T7 Canada Communique, a document put together by the Canadian Centre for International Governance Innovation put it, "One of the most powerful contributions the G7 can make to the trajectory of transformational technologies is to unlock, organize and secure information that supports decision making, coordination, and regulatory capacity."
The G7 Semiconductor Points of Contact Group is a good contemporary prototype. Establishing similar groups for quantum computing and other transformative technologies would be a productive next step.
In our current era of change, there are too few organizations with the capacity to address the challenges we face. But the G7 countries can. That is, if they summon the political will, mobilize their nations' internal strengths, and demonstrate the needed unity to play this role.
Contact us at [e-mail].