G7’s 50th birthday year sees Trump as party pooper

[LONDON] In 2018, Canada hosted what may have been the most challenging year ever of G7 diplomacy during Donald Trump’s first presidency. Yet, even that may be tame compared to the Canadian-led G7 this year, which coincides with the start of Trump’s second term and the 50th anniversary of the club’s first summit in 1975.

In June 2018, Trump remarkably refused to endorse the end-of-summit G7 communique and called for Russia’s re-entry into the club of advanced industrial democracies. Moreover, he criticised other G7 leaders, including host Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as having “acted so meek and mild” but “very dishonest and weak” in an extraordinary outburst.

Moreover, upon leaving the Canadian event, Trump went on to heap praise on North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who he met soon afterwards at the Singapore summit. This positive feedback came despite little, if any, new concessions coming from Pyongyang at the time over its nuclear programme in talks with Trump, in a process that ultimately collapsed a year later in 2019 in Vietnam.