Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.
Trump makes G7 toughest for years
By Andrew Hammond
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The G7 presidents and prime ministers met in Canada on Friday and Saturday in what is likely to prove one of the group's most challenging such summits in many years.
On a range of issues from trade to climate change and Iran, the United States appears to be dividing from key Western partners at a time of significant geopolitical and international economic turbulence giving rise to talk of a “G6 plus 1.”
While the fissures within the G7 did not begin with U.S. President Donald Trump's election in 2016, they have been exacerbated by it.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been a series of intra-Western disagreements over issues from the Middle East, including the Iraq War opposed in 2003 by France and Germany; through to the rise of China with some European powers and the U.S. having disagreements over the best way to engage the rising super power.
Yet, despite occasional discord, key Western nations generally continued to agree until the Trump presidency around a broad range of issues such as international trade; backing for a Middle Eastern peace process between Israel and the Palestinians along the Oslo principles; plus strong support for the international rules-based system and the supranational organizations that make this work.
Yet today, more of these key principles are being disrupted if not outright undermined by Trump's agenda.
Take the example of international trade which will see Trump isolated in Canada following the U.S. imposition of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports against all its G7 partners.
At last weekend's G7 Finance Minister meeting, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was warned of the possibility of a pending trade war and received the “unanimous concern and disappointment” of Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany and Italy.
The tensions over trade are especially pressing for the G7 hosts Canada given that Trump also warned, again, last Friday that he is considering scrapping the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
In this contentious context, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will push an agenda that includes trade and the macroeconomy, tackling income and gender equality, female empowerment, climate change, and peace and security.
With the Trump tensions over trade and climate change, much of this could be stymied as proved the case last year at the Italian-hosted event.
It is therefore reported that significant emphasis will be put at the meeting on finding greater G7 consensus on a range of security and geopolitical issues.
Potential examples here could include the June 12 Singapore summit between Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, plus the continuing clampdown against Daesh in Syria and Iraq.
It is also possible, despite potential Trump reservations, there will be a statement on Russia following the expulsions earlier this year from the G7 and other allied countries of numerous of Moscow's diplomats.
There is little sign that Russia, which joined the then-G8 summits from 1997 to 2013, will be invited back to the club soon and it has been told it can only rejoin if “it changes course and an environment is once again created in which it is possible for the G8 to hold reasonable discussions.”
There is also a strong possibility of a further G7 statement over its concerns over the process leading to the re-election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Western leaders remain worried about the destabilizing political effects of the Caracus crisis for the wider region, including bordering states of Brazil and Colombia, and the fact that Venezuela is the third-largest oil exporter to the U.S. and has the world's largest proven oil reserves.
Should the G7 put this emphasis on such issues it will underline, yet again, the group's often under-appreciated importance as an international security linchpin ― despite the fact that it was originally conceived in the 1970s to monitor developments in the world economy and assess macroeconomic policies.
Last year's Italy summit, for instance, was dominated by the aftermath of the Manchester terrorist attacks and development of a new G7 terrorism action plan; plus the-then brewing nuclear tensions on the Korean Peninsula. In Italy, Trump also pushed other G7 members for NATO to become a full member of the global coalition against Daesh.
The G7's involvement in this multitude of geopolitical dialogues is not without controversy given its original macroeconomic mandate. For instance, China strongly objected to discussion of maritime security in Asia at the 2016 Japan-hosted summit.
It is sometimes asserted, especially by developing countries, that the G7 lacks the legitimacy of the U.N. to engage in these international security issues, and/or is a historical artefact given the rise of new powers, including China and India. However, it is not the case that the international security role of the G7 is new.
An early example of the linchpin function the body has played here was in the 1970s and 1980s when it helped coordinate Western strategy toward the then-Soviet Union. Moreover, following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the then-G8 (including Russia) assumed a key role in the U.S.-led “campaign against terrorism.”
Taken overall, this year's G7 could see very significant splits, especially on trade. While some of these fissures predate the Trump presidency, his agenda has grown these gaps into what could soon become unprecedented strains in the Western alliance.
Andrew Hammond (
andrewkorea@outlook.com
) is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics