G7 leaders gird for 'bulldozing' Trump after organizers bear-proof sylvan meeting spot in Canada
The last time world leaders gathered in Kananaskis, a bear tried to make its way into the 2002 meeting of the world's top eight economies and met an untimely end.
This time, members of the G7 developing strategies to handle a different formidable figure: President Donald Trump.
It will be Trump's first time setting foot on Canadian soil since saying Canada was 'meant to be' the 51st U.S. state and slapping 25 percent tariffs on Canada's steel.
U.S. statehood polls abysmally here, and the issue sets up a gathering that is anything but typical.
'He's not acting like an ally right now when he's trying to disrupt our economy and threatening to take us over. Even if he says it's a joke, it's not a joke. You don't treat another sovereign country like that,' said Robert Mallach, a law professor at the University of Calgary.
Mallach said other leaders should 'ignore' Trump at the summit, and said Canada's new Prime Minister Mark Carney took the best posture: 'Let's start protecting Canada by spending some money on defense. And let's realize we need allies other than America to do that.'
Trump 'comes to the G7 running into allies who are quite frankly tired of the kind of threats and the kind of taunts that Trump has been engaged in,' said Brett Bruen, a former White House National Security Council official during the Obama administration.
'I think he's going to get a firsthand dose and dousing of reality, which is that these comments have consequences,' he said. 'I think this is one of those situations where Trump's bluster and bulldozing is going to run into some pretty hard, harsh realities on the international scene.'
Still to be determined if Trump arrives ready for compromise, or feeling emboldened after watching a parade of MI Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles during the Army 250th military parade on his birthday in D.C.
'It certainly is going to put him in jingoistic mindset where he will feel, if not regal, at least replenished in his splendor, and that, as we've seen in the past, can lead to some really strange outbursts and sense of self-importance,' Bruen added.
It is also unclear how much pre-planning fellow leaders have done. They could try to seek an 'intervention' on trade, although that could backfire.
Canadian PM Mark Carney appears to have managed the situation deftly when he met with Trump in the Oval Office and declared his country not for sale while also pushing cooperation with Canada's more powerful neighbor.
Now, he is holding out hope of a deal with the U.S. on trade and security. 'We're having intensive discussions in real time,' he said this week.
Any agreement would progress compared to Trump's 2018 meeting with then-PM Justin Trudeau. That meeting ended in angry outbursts from Air Force One, with Trump calling Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak' and threatening to impose new auto tariffs.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin attended the 2002 meeting, also in Kananaskis, during George W. Bush's presidency but got kicked out of the group after his 2014 annexation of Ukraine.
This time, Putin's militarism will be a topic for other leaders to analyze, a day after Trump touted a forthcoming talk with him after Putin called with birthday greetings and the two talked about the war between Israel and Iran.
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney made it through a fraught White House meeting with Trump, who repeatedly called his predecessor 'governor'
A senior administration official previewing the summit sketched out the topics of discussion: 'trade in the global economy, critical minerals, migrant and drug smuggling, wildfires, international security, artificial intelligence and energy security.'
The topic the official didn't mention are the deep tensions set off by Trump's repeated call to absorb the host country.
The official did say that 'we appreciate Canada's cooperation in the planning of the summit and their choice of a great location in Canada for these important conversations.'
Middle East security, with Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear program and military leadership and Iran firing missiles at Israel, is certain to soak up attention.
French President Emmanuel Macron set the tone Sunday with a pointed visit to Greenland – a sprawling Arctic territory that Trump said the U.S. needed to obtain.
'I don´t think that´s something to be done between allies,' Macron said as he met with Danish PM Mette Frederiksen and Greenland's PM Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
'It´s important to show that Denmark and Europe are committed to this territory, which has very high strategic stakes and whose territorial integrity must be respected,' said Macron.
As far as the actual bears roaming the G7 meeting spot in Kananaskis next to the Canadian Rockies, local officials have taken steps to avoid further mishaps.
Among the security gear they trotted out early this month in advance of the event was a large bear trap.
Local students were enlisted to pluck thousands of berries from area bushes so as to lower the temptations that might lure bears to try to crash the confab.
That's what happened at the 2002 summit, when security officials used a bear-banger device to try to scare away a bear who got near delegates. It ended up falling out of a tree and dying.
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