Trump an outlier on several G7 issues
Concerns over potential for fatal fracture of group
Less than a month before Donald Trump sets foot on Canadian soil for the G7, Justin Trudeau’s chief summit organizer is being forced to defend the viability of the G7 itself.
Trump’s potential to disrupt the summit — an international meeting in which the prime minister has invested significant political capital — is growing larger by the day as his June 8 arrival date in La Malbaie, Que., creeps closer. Trudeau and his fellow summiteers from Britain, France, Germany and the European Union have already expressed their regrets over Trump’s decision this past week to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement. Trump was already a G7 outlier on trade and climate change. But now there’s growing concern that the group itself could fatally fracture, with the U.S. splintering off. The ambassadors from several G7 countries to Canada were forced to address that recently.
Peter Boehm, Canada’s G7 sherpa, was also confronted with the issue this past week during an unusually tough
IF LEADERS WERE TO AGREE ON EVERYTHING, THERE WOULDN’T BE A POINT IN HAVING THESE MEETINGS.
question-and-answer session at a gathering in Ottawa. “Are we into a six-plus-one dynamic?” asked Sandelle Scrimshaw, a former foreign service colleague of Boehm’s during a dinner appearance of the Canadian International Council in Ottawa.
The 63-year-old career diplomat offered a careful, measured reply, but he left open the possibility that the G7, which runs on a consensus basis, simply wouldn’t be able to reach one next month. “If leaders were to agree on everything, there wouldn’t be a point in having these meetings,” said Boehm. “You try to work out the consensus, and if there isn’t a consensus there, it’s clear that you state the obvious — that we don’t have unanimity on a particular issue.” That would mark a repeat of Trump’s disruptive debut at last year’s G7 in Italy — his first foray onto the world of multilateral diplomacy. There was no common ground to be found on climate change.
Boehm said there has been careful planning and consulting among his fellow G7 sherpas to ensure a smoother, more successful outcome this time.