Trump warns G7 on trade, then leaves
President Donald Trump left the Group of Seven summit yesterday, warning America’s trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.
The US president also insisted he had a “great relationship” with his foreign counterparts, but said: “If they retaliate, they’re making a mistake.”
Mr Trump continued the same tough talk on trade during his short stay at the meeting in Quebec as the language he used when setting off from the White House, accusing the summit’s host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, of being “indignant”.
The summit came amid a trade dispute with China and served as a precursor to his first meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday.
“His message from Quebec to Singapore is that he is going to meld the industrial democracies to his will, and bring back Russia,” said Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s former campaign and White House adviser. Speaking yesterday, Mr Trump said he pressed for the G7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in their trading practices.
He reiterated his long-standing view that the US had been taken advantage of in global trade, saying: “We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.”
He said US farmers had been harmed by tariffs and other barriers and said that America’s trading partners would need to provide him with more favourable terms. “It’s going to stop, or we’ll stop trading with them,” he said.
Before his arrival at the summit on Friday, the US president injected additional controversy by suggesting that the G7 offer a seat at the table to Russia, which was ejected from the group after it annexed Crimea in 2014. Re-admitting Russia to the elite group would be “an asset”, Mr Trump said. “We’re looking for peace in the world.”
The US president then left the summit after arriving late for a breakfast meeting on gender equity and missing sessions on climate change, clean energy and ocean protection.
His departure came before any resolution was announced on the traditional joint statement from the group, which in addition to the US and Canada includes Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan.
Mr Trump’s recent moves, building on 18 months of nationalist policy-making, leave him out of step with the globally minded organisation, prompting speculation that the group could splinter.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, said later that the G7 leaders had agreed on the wording of a common statement that would include a commitment to a “rulesbased” trade framework.
In public, Mr Trump bantered with the other leaders, but their meeting came at a tense moment in the relationships, with allies angered by the president’s new tariffs on steel and aluminium from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.