Israel-Iran conflict sets to rule G7 summit

This week’s G7 summit in Canada will be dominated by war-only one of those people that world leaders expect.

On the agenda, Russia’s war on tariff wars against Ukraine and Donald Trump’s war on U.S. trading partners.

Instead, three-day gatherings in the Alberta Rockies will inevitably focus on the war in the Middle East.

Israel’s decision to attack Iran would force groups of seven Western powers to spend less time on other issues while discussing ways to manage conflict.

Like many of their discussions, it will involve the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, as well as Canada and Japan, in order to seek to influence the United States.

Because despite the lack of clear U.S. support, Israel may have launched these strikes, the U.S. president is the only leader who has really had a real leverage to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

G7 leaders will arrive in Canada on Sunday, knowing global security and economic risks if the conflict escalates, delays in other countries and soars in oil prices.

But they may find it difficult to achieve a common position. Some French Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have called for restraint and relegation.

But others, including Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, condemned the Israeli attacks as “unbearable” and “extremely regretful”. Mr. Trump praised Israel’s strike as “excellent”.

There is a long way from the talks planned by New Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney in the wilderness retreat in Kananaskis. He hopes to top the championship to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the G7’s birth and avoid a row with Mr. Trump.

Much of his agenda is uncontroversial, about energy security, protecting mineral supply chains, accelerating digital transitions and responding to forest fires.

There were few mentions of issues such as climate change, and Mr. Trump expressed doubts. Canadian officials even decided not to hold a summit to avoid text disputes that dominate the gatherings.

Instead, world leaders will agree with many “short action-oriented statements” to maintain consensus and ignore divisive issues.

Canadians remember very much the last time they had a G7 party in 2018, when there was a row – yes – Donald Trump’s trade tariffs. The president rushed into the plane early and watched then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau withdraw his support for the summit communiqué on then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

This summit, Mr. Carney may arrange a visit to the Kananaskis Golf Club in an attempt to keep Mr. Trump here.

Under this warning, given Trump’s obvious contempt, it’s a fundamental question about whether these annual gatherings are still worth it. He prefers bilateral transactions over multilateral consensus construction.

This is the president’s first foray on the world stage since his inauguration and his six partners will anxiously search for whether he wants to fight or look like a politician voter.

“There aren’t so many problems right now,” said Max Bergmann, director of European, Russian and Eurasian programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Programme, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Programme. I think it’s almost a question: “Is this still a family?”

On one hand, Kananaskis’ dramatic characters help. There were several new faces around the table – Sir Kyle Starmer, Prime Minister of Germany’s Melz, Mr Isbon and Mr Kahney himself. Senior G7 leaders – President Macron and Italian Prime Minister Meloni – get along well with the US president.

Other leaders also attended summits in Mexico, India, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, and are not expected to fight.

The most obvious test of the G7 survival tension is Trump’s trade war.

The clubs of some of the world’s wealthiest industrial countries were established in the 1970s to discuss the global economic crisis. However, now the G7 finds itself dealing with the destructive tariffs imposed by one of its members.

The argument that world leaders will make to Mr. Trump is that if he wants them to help him with China’s long-term threat, it makes no sense to him to punish his allies. They will make it clear that there is a trade-off between putting the United States first and occupying Beijing.

“If the question is how we coordinate China, how we coordinate technology, how we coordinate Russia and Ukraine – if we also get something from another member, how do we create economic hardship in our country, how do we build this alliance between high economic democracy?”

The key to this debate will be Ukraine. President Zelensky will attend the discussion on Tuesday. His goal, along with other leaders, will be to assess the status quo of President Trump’s thoughts on Russia.

Ukraine’s allies want to put more pressure on President Putin to attend the negotiating table. To do this, they wanted to try harder to impress his economy.

First, they want to lower most of the world’s prices to pay for Russian oil.

They have agreed in December 2022 to limit the price of Russian crude oil to $60 per barrel, which makes access to western ports as well as transportation insurance and port conditions. However, by falling energy prices, this reduces this efficiency.

The European Commission’s cap is $45. Ukraine hopes it will be lowered, and it will be sold for $30. It is not clear what Mr. Trump thinks about it. Some officials have said allies may have to lower the cap without the support of the United States.

Second, Ukraine’s Western allies also hope for a tough new economic sanctions.

The European Commission has proposed new penalties for Moscow’s energy revenue, banking and military industries.

U.S. senators led by Lindsay Graham are also pushing for tough new sanctions that would impose high tariffs on countries buying cheap Russian oil, especially China and India.

It was once said that the G7 is the “steering committee” of the free world. This week may reveal whether the club’s driving date has ended