Group of Seven (G7) nations leaders gathered for an annual summit have erupted into squabbles, exposing sharp differences on global trade, Britain’s exit from the European Union and how to respond to the fires raging in the Amazon rainforest.
French President Emmanuel Macron, the summit host, planned the three-day meeting in the Atlantic seaside resort of Biarritz as a chance to unite a group of wealthy countries that have struggled in recent years to speak with one voice.
Reuters Newsagency reports Mr Macron set an agenda for the group, France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, that included the defence of democracy, gender equality, education and the environment.
He invited Asian, African and Latin American leaders to join them for a global push on these issues.
Reuters reports two US officials said President Donald Trump’s delegation was irked that Mr Macron had skewed the focus of the meeting to “niche issues” at the expense of the global economy, which many leaders worry is slowing sharply and at risk of slipping into recession.
In a bleak assessment of relations between once-close allies, European Council President Donald Tusk said it was getting “increasingly” hard to find common ground.
“This is another G7 summit which will be a difficult test of unity and solidarity of the free world and its leaders,” he told reporters ahead of the meeting.
“This may be the last moment to restore our political community.”
Mr Trump brought last year’s G7 summit to an acrimonious end, walking out early from the gathering in Canada and rejecting the final communiqué.
Mr Trump arrived in France a day after responding to a new round of Chinese tariffs by announcing Washington would impose an additional five per cent duty on some $US550 billion of Chinese imports, the latest tit-for-tat trade war escalation by the world’s two largest economies.
“So far so good,” Mr Trump told reporters as he sat on a seafront terrace with Mr Macron, saying the two leaders had a special relationship.
However, the initial smiles could not disguise their opposing approaches to many problems, including the knotty question of protectionism and tax.
The leaders themselves were gathering behind tight security in a waterfront conference venue, the surrounding streets barricaded by police.
Australian conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister Scott Morrison also attended the G7 summit in an observational capacity alongside Indian, Chilean and South African leaders.
EU leaders have piled pressure on Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to do more over fires raging in the Amazon rainforest.
Even so, Britain and Germany were at odds with Mr Macron’s decision to pressure Brazil by blocking a trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said not concluding the trade deal was “not the appropriate answer to what is happening in Brazil now”.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson also appeared to disagree with Mr Macron on how to respond.
“There are all sorts of people who will take any excuse at all to interfere with trade and to frustrate trade deals and I don’t want to see that,” he said.
Mr Johnson will want to strike a balance between not alienating Britain’s European allies and not irritating Mr Trump and possibly jeopardising future trade ties.
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