G-7 talks coming to city ahead of summit

Foreign ministers set to gather here

Pittsburgh will be getting some international attention later this month when a two-day meeting of G-7 foreign ministers convenes in Downtown as a prelude to the G-7 summit this summer in Maryland.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will host foreign ministers for the meeting here at which his counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada will be in attendance.

The meeting, which will take place at the Omni William Penn hotel March 24 and 25, comes ahead of the G-7 summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. President Donald Trump originally planned to hold the summit, which is scheduled for June, at his Doral golf resort in Miami. Camp David also was the site of the group’s 38th summit in 2012.

G-7, which stands for “Group of Seven” industrialized nations, used to be known as the G8 until 2014, when Russia was excluded because of its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. G-7 should not be confused with G20, or Group of 20, which is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union. Pittsburgh hosted the much larger G-20 conference in September 2009.

The ministers meeting and the G-7 Summit are being held in

the United States this year because in January the U.S. took over the rotating oneyear G-7 presidency of the group. President Trump has said he wants the G-7 to be smaller, more nimble and with shorter communiques while France, which held the G-7 presidency last year, had advocated for an expanded format.

Mayor Bill Peduto said Wednesday said he first learned in the fall that Pittsburgh would be the site of the ministers’ meeting.

“I spoke with the secretary back in November when it was decided they had chosen Pittsburgh, and since then, obviously, the coronavirus has become a major concern. We’ll be working with the State Department in order to be able to see how they’ll be testing and what the interactions with the airport will be,” Mayor Peduto told reporters.

The event, which is being run by the State Department, will require increased security including some road closures in Downtown, but nothing like what occurred when the G-20 was held here, the mayor said.

“This isn’t going to be like the G-20 when the entire city was quarantined and Oakland was quarantined. We’re looking at a small amount of closures which will impact traffic, but the police are being prepared and are looking at the security needs of the State Department.”

Neither city nor county officials could say why Pittsburgh was chosen for the ministers conference.

President Barack Obama chose Pittsburgh to host the G-20 meeting in 2009 to showcase to the world the city’s economic recovery following the collapse of the steel industry and other manufacturing. It was a major coup for the city to have such worldwide attention, but during and afterward, many here were reminded of the adage, “Be careful what you wish for.”

During the two-day conference, primarily held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and classified as a National Special Security Event, many people felt the city resembled an armed encampment. Drivers and pedestrians found it difficult to navigate Downtown because of road closures and security zones. Many public schools, universities and nearby businesses were closed, with many employees working remotely for the duration of the conference.

The unprecedented security in Pittsburgh was coordinated by the Secret Service, working in conjunction with the Pittsburgh police. It is estimated that 4,000 police officers were requested with city, county, suburban, state police and sheriff’s deputies augmented by officers from New York, Baltimore and Chicago. Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead as SWAT, helicopter, mounted, undercover, bicycle and motorcycle officers as well as Army soldiers and Coast Guard personnel on the rivers were prepared for a terrorist attack or largescale violent protests.

About 4,500 people, many from out of town, participated in protests in Lawrenceville, Oakland and other neighborhoods. In some cases, they were met with pepper spray, riot batons and, for the first time in the United States, use of a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) to remove protesters from an area. Damage to area businesses was estimated at $50,000.