16 hours ago
G7 has been Trump-proofed to avoid trouble – here's how
The Canadian organisers of the G7 summit are taking no chances with Donald Trump this week, ditching the usual joint communiqué, padding the event with extra guests and reducing the amount of time when the world leaders sit around the same table.
It is the latest example of how global institutions are adapting to the return of an unpredictable and combative figure.
A diplomat in Washington DC, who has seen the schedule, said it included fewer plenary sessions of the full group and more one-on-one meetings
'There's a lot more of that than at other summits,' he said, 'which would make sense if you are worried about one person causing trouble.'
The last time Mr Trump attended a G7 summit in Canada he stormed off early, ripping up a joint communiqué and leaving a trail of withering tweets behind him.
His blanket use of trade tariffs has already set nerves on edge, according to Matthew P Goodman, who was deputy to the US G7 Sherpa during the Obama administration, one of the figures doing the heavy lifting on negotiations.
'Those two issues hang over this upcoming summit, and are going to make it very challenging for the host, Mark Carney, to manage this,' he said.
Canadian diplomats were buoyed by their new prime minister's performance at the White House recently, when he avoided the sort or tongue lashing delivered to some other world leaders.
But organisers are leaving nothing to chance.
World leaders are due to begin arriving on Sunday. They will fly into the international airport in Calgary from where they will helicopter to the picturesque setting of Kananaskis, deep in the Canadian Rockies.
Organisers have padded the number of attendees by inviting leaders from India, Brazil, Ukraine, Australia and Saudi Arabia (although Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman reportedly will not be attending).
Cyril Ramaphosa, the South African president, is coming. He knows better than most how Mr Trump can undo the best laid plans after being ambushed last month in the Oval Office and accused of allowing a 'white genocide' to unfold.
Mark Rutte, Nato secretary general, and António Guterres, the UN secretary general, are expected to attend.
There will also be a session on fentanyl smuggling, a cause particularly close to Mr Trump's heart.
The result is more breakaway bilateral meetings and fewer chances for Mr Trump to clog up the agenda.
Mr Goodman said: 'Any host of these forums, if they're smart, will minimise the time around the table. You need a certain amount of that, but you want to allow for a lot of time on the margins for bilateral conversations and meetings'
In 2018, Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister at the time, presided over a G7 summit where Mr Trump abruptly pulled the US out of a previously agreed communiqué, before blasting his host as 'dishonest and weak'.
He flew out of Canada early, apparently upset at the way Mr Trudeau had talked about Canadian tariffs on US exports.
It meant weeks of careful negotiations on easing trade tensions between the US and the European Union went up in smoke.
This time Mr Carney is preparing to issue a chairman's statement, according to The Toronto Star, avoiding the need for all the parties to agree on a joint position on awkward issues such as Ukraine or Israel's strikes on Iran.
'Our hope is that Mr Trump will join us in getting tougher on Russia and push through new sanctions,' said a senior diplomat from a G7 nation. 'But he could equally say, no, let's give them another two weeks and then there is no chance for agreement.'
That makes it almost impossible to make progress on a joint text ahead of the summit, he added.
'The problem is that no one knows what's on Trump's mind,' he said. 'Negotiating in the absence of that is not easy.'
The G7 summit is not the only high-stakes diplomacy this month. Nato leaders will assemble in The Hague next week, where defence spending will be top of the agenda.
Summit organisers there are preparing a one-page communiqué, The Telegraph revealed on Friday, designed to suit Mr Trump's attention span.
It will be almost entirely focused on one of the president's pet issues and the historic decision to more than double spending on defence by leaders to meet new capability targets for deterring a Russian invasion.
Mr Trump stormed out of his last Nato summit in the UK in 2019, abandoning plans for a press conference, after Mr Trudeau was caught on video apparently mocking the American president.
He was talking to Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, discussing how Mr Trump liked to use photo opportunities to talk to the press.
