Trump will be coming to Canada to attend G7 summit in June, White House confirms
President Donald Trump will attend the Group of Seven summit in June, as tensions over trade and his efforts to halt Russia's war in Ukraine cloud U.S. ties with some of its closest allies.
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that Trump would attend the gathering from June 15 to 17.
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This year's G7 leaders summit will be held in Kananaskis, taking Trump to Canada — whose economy and sovereignty have faced threats from the U.S. president — highlighting how his policies to reshape global trade and defence ties have upended long-standing relationships.
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Trump has repeatedly suggested Canada should become the 51st U.S. state, and his sweeping tariffs threaten to damage one of the world's largest trading relationships, with the two neighbours exchanging $916 billion in goods and services in 2024.
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Trump's import taxes will be high on the agenda as U.S. trading partners look to secure deals to avoid higher levies. The president in May unveiled a trade deal with the United Kingdom, though the details fell short of the 'full and comprehensive' agreement he cast it as, and the U.S. and China have agreed to slash their tit-for-tat tariffs in a bid to ease negotiations.
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Still, the president has indicated he is moving away from engaging in negotiations with many countries and will look to dictate some tariff levels on his own. The sweeping levies on dozens of nations and on key sectors have spurred worries about a global slowdown.
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Ahead of the June leaders' summit, the G7's top finance ministers, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, gathered in Canada this week confronting worries about slower growth and higher inflation from the trade war, and looking to find common ground.
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A far more contentious issue facing the G7 leaders is support for Ukraine. European allies' hopes that Trump would raise pressure on Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine were dashed earlier in May after he spoke to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
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Trump said Ukraine and Russia would begin negotiations toward a halt in the fighting after the call, but offered no sanctions threat or timeline to push Putin toward peace, frustrating Kyiv and its allies. Putin has presented only maximalist demands, confident that his forces hold the upper hand in a war against Ukraine that he launched, and which is now in its fourth year.
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