Trumps argues for Russian readmission in G7

World Monday 26/August/2019 16:24 PM
By: Times News Service
Trumps argues for Russian readmission in G7

Paris: Donald Trump has rowed with his fellow G7 leaders over his demand that Russia be readmitted to the group, rejecting arguments that it should remain an association of liberal democracies, according to diplomats at the summit in Biarritz.

The disagreement led to heated exchanges at a dinner on Saturday night inside the seaside resort’s 19th-century lighthouse. According to diplomatic sources, Trump argued strenuously that Vladimir Putin should be invited back, five years after Russia was ejected from the then G8, for its annexation of Crimea.

Of the other leaders around the table, only Giuseppe Conte, the outgoing Italian prime minister, offered Trump any support, according to this account. Shinzo Abe of Japan was neutral. The rest – the UK’s Boris Johnson, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, the EU council president, Donald Tusk, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron – pushed back firmly against the suggestion.

“On that point ... it became a bit tense to say the least,” a European diplomat said. “Most of the other leaders insisted on this being a family, a club, a community of liberal democracies and for that reason they said you cannot allow President Putin – who does not represent that – back in.”

“That is not such a very important thing for [Trump]. He doesn’t share that view,” the diplomat added. According to this account Trump argued that on issues such as Iran, Syria and North Korea, it made sense to have Russia in the room. “So he had a really kind of fundamental difference about this.”

The summit is being hosted on Biarritz’s Atlantic seafront, which has been entirely sealed off for the event. Encouraged by warm breezes and mostly sunny skies, several of the leaders chose to walk from their grand hotel to the venue for the talks along the deserted and heavily guarded beach in front of the city’s casino.

In breaks in the negotiations, they have been treated to the best of the Basque region’s cuisine, prepared by top local chefs and kitchen staff from the Élysée Palace.

Below the pleasantly gilded surface, however, there has been an undercurrent of bitterness and anxiety at the summit. Boxed in by multiple global crises, the group of major industrialised democracies is arguably at its most divided since its founding in 1977.

Trump has been arguing for Russian readmission since the G7 summit in Quebec last year and appeared determined to revive the demand, bringing it up in a discussion about Iran policy and taking his counterparts by surprise with the vehemence of his views on the subject.

There was nervousness about Trump’s arrival, in the midst of a trade war with China and his reported reluctance to attend, arguing it was not a good use of his time. At the previous summit in Quebec, Trump left early and ordered US officials to withdraw his agreement to a joint communiqué. As a precaution this year, Macron decreed there would be no communiqué to withdraw from.

In an attempt to win over Trump, Macron staged a benign ambush as the US president arrived, whisking him off to an unscheduled lunch, where the two men talked without officials or aides for nearly two hours.

Trump later tweeted that it was “the best meeting we have yet had”, though he misspelt the French president’s name and accidentally linked to a parody Macron account, which has since been suspended.