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It’s Trump vs rest on trade, climate at G7

TAORMINA:Leaders from the world’s major industrialised nations began talks on Friday at a G7 summit in Sicily which is expected to expose deep divisions with US President Donald Trump over trade and climate change.

It’s Trump vs rest on trade, climate at G7

From left : Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, US President Donald Trump, Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, and Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May, pose for a family photo in Sicily on Friday. Reuters



TAORMINA, Italy, May 26 

Leaders from the world’s major industrialised nations began talks on Friday at a G7 summit in Sicily which is expected to expose deep divisions with US President Donald Trump over trade and climate change.

The two-day summit, at a cliff-top hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, began a day after Trump blasted NATO allies for spending too little on defence and described Germany’s trade surplus as “very bad” at a meeting with EU officials in Brussels.

After receiving warm receptions in Saudi Arabia and Israel, Trump’s confrontational stance with long-standing partners in Europe cast a cloud over the meeting in Taormina, where leaders are due to discuss terrorism, Syria, North Korea and the global economy.

“No doubt, this will be the most challenging G7 summit in years,” Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said before the meeting. White House economic adviser Gary Cohn predicted “robust” discussions on trade and climate.

Trump was elected in November after a campaign in which he rejected many of the tenets that the Group of Seven has stood for, including free trade, multilateralism and the liberal democratic values.

European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuel Macron, had hoped to use the summit to convince Trump to soften some of his stances.

But diplomats conceded as the talks began that the United States was unlikely to budge, meaning the final communique could be watered down significantly compared to the one the G7 unveiled at its last summit in Japan.

The summit kicked off with a ceremony at an ancient Greek theatre overlooking the sea, where war ships patrolled the sparkling blue waters. Nine fighter jets soared into the sky above Taormina, leaving a trail of smoke in the red-white-green colours of the Italian flag.

The leaders then adjourned to the San Domenico Palace, a one-time Dominican monastery that is now a luxury five-star hotel. During World War Two, it housed Nazi air force chiefs.

Italy chose to stage the summit in Sicily to draw attention to Africa, which is 225 km from the island at its closest point across the Mediterranean.

More than half a million migrants, most from sub-Saharan Africa, have reached Italy by boat since 2014, taking advantage of the chaos in Libya to launch their perilous crossings.

But trade and climate are the most contentious issues.

Trump, who dismissed human-made global warming as a “hoax” during his election campaign, is threatening to pull the United States out of a 2015 climate deal clinched in Paris in 2015.

Fellow G7 leaders are trying to convince him to stay in. Cohn and other administration officials have said Trump will wait until after the summit to decide.

“This is the first real opportunity that the international community has to force the American administration to begin to show its hand, particularly on environment policy,” said Tristen Naylor, a lecturer on development at the University of Oxford and deputy director of the G20 Research Group. — Reuters

EU chief Tusk calls on G7 to maintain Russia sanctions

  • EU president Donald Tusk called on G7 leaders to maintain sanctions on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, but the White House said it did not yet “have a position” on the issue
  • The EU and US under Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Moscow over its 2014 annexation of Crimea and fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and pro-Russia rebels
  • But it is as yet unclear whether Trump, who is under fire domestically over allegations that Russia meddled to aid his election campaign last year, will maintain these sanctions

Newcomers at summit

  • US President Donald Trump is attending his first major international summit but is not the only G7 newcomer. French President Macron, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni and British Prime Minister Theresa May are also attending the elite club for the first time
  • G7 leaders were expected to issue a separate statement on terrorism on Friday, before issuing their formal communique on Saturday. Officials have suggested the final communique will be shorter than 10 pages. At the last G7 summit in Japan it totalled 32 pages
  • One country that will not be present is Russia. It was expelled from the group in 2014 following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Trump called for improved ties with Moscow during his election campaign

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