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Leaders of seven of the world's largest economies are meeting this weekend in Canada. That includes President Trump, who has imposed tariffs on all of the other six and threatened to annex Canada. It's a new level of tension for a president whose first term was marked by contentious G7 summits. NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben reports.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Back in 2017, Donald Trump sounded triumphant as he left his first G7 in Sicily, capping off his first foreign trip as president.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But we have been gone for close to nine days. This will be nine days. And I think we hit a home run no matter where we are.
KURTZLEBEN: That wasn't how everyone felt. Trump had frustrated Germany's then-chancellor, Angela Merkel. And when she returned to her country, she said at a political rally that alliances were fraying.
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ANGELA MERKEL: (Through interpreter) The times when we could completely rely on others, they are over to a certain extent. I have experienced this in the last few days.
KURTZLEBEN: With his America-first worldview, Trump brought friction and even chaos to the G7 in his first term. Creon Butler was on the U.K.'s negotiation team in 2017.
CREON BUTLER: I think the expectation initially was that he would be persuadable on a wide range of issues.
KURTZLEBEN: Climate change topped that list, said Butler, along with trade and development efforts for poor countries. That didn't happen.
BUTLER: It became clearer and clearer that the gap between, if you like, President Trump's view of how things should be taken forward and the other members became very wide.
KURTZLEBEN: G7s end with a joint statement that lays out everything the countries agreed to. But in 2017, that statement was unusual, however, singling out the U.S. It stated that on climate change, the U.S. was, quote, "not in a position to join the consensus." The next year, things got personal. At a press conference at the end of the 2018 summit, Canada's then-prime minister, Justin Trudeau, threatened to retaliate against U.S. tariffs.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU: I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing, but it is something that we absolutely will do because Canadians - we're polite. We're reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.
KURTZLEBEN: Trump quickly lashed out, tweeting that Trudeau was dishonest and weak and that Trump was instructing his team not to sign that year's joint statement. His economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, soon expressed his fury on CBS' "Face The Nation."
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LARRY KUDLOW: Trudeau's very unfortunate statements, his betrayal. He betrayed Trump. Can I ask - he betrayed the whole G7.
KURTZLEBEN: In 2019, the White House laid out its own vision for the G7 - to rein in the mission creep. Kelly Ann Shaw was Trump's lead negotiator at that G7 and thought that tackling areas like the environment and tourism was overreach.
KELLY ANN SHAW: I think some of the tension you saw was, as the U.S. lead negotiator, I was involved in these discussions trying to push other governments to say, why don't we just focus on real, meaningful outcomes? We're just using words for the sake of using words.
KURTZLEBEN: Shaw thinks the G7 still has an important role.
SHAW: When it comes to the economy, when it comes to the global financial system, when it comes to issues related to China, increasingly things like AI and, of course, what's happening in Ukraine, like, those are issues leaders should be spending their time on.
KURTZLEBEN: But tackling those kinds of sensitive issues requires strong international bonds, which may be difficult with Trump involved, says Butler, the former UK negotiator.
BUTLER: For all of that to work, you need a high level of trust. And, you know, a number of things that the president has done, you know, really undermines that trust. So threatening to take over the territory of - to take over Canada, let's say.
KURTZLEBEN: Trump leaves for the G7 on Sunday. The White House says he plans to hold a series of one-on-one meetings with the leaders there but has yet to lay out his broader goals.
Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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