Gizem Nisa Demir
15 June 2025•Update: 15 June 2025
ISTANBUL
World leaders are convening in the Canadian Rockies for a high-stakes G7 summit dominated by dual crises: escalating conflict in the Middle East and the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s trade threats.
As host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has scrapped the traditional closing communique, anticipating fractured consensus amid rising global tensions.
The summit opens Monday, though leaders—including Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron—began arriving Sunday for preliminary talks.
- Global flashpoints and Trump’s provocations
The backdrop is volatile as Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory attacks have alarmed capitals worldwide.
“We do recognize Israel’s right to self-defense, but I’m absolutely clear that this needs to de-escalate,” Starmer said en route to Canada. “There is a huge risk of escalation for the region and more widely.”
Britain has deployed Royal Air Force jets to the region and is engaged in urgent diplomacy with both US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, France’s Macron made a symbolic detour to Greenland, a nod to Trump’s previous suggestion of acquiring the Arctic territory.
Trump remains the summit’s unpredictable force.
His recent remarks about making Canada the “51st state” have stirred outrage in Ottawa and beyond, although Starmer declined to say whether he had directly rebuked the idea.
“Let me be absolutely clear: Canada is an independent, sovereign country and a much-valued member of the Commonwealth,” he told The Associated Press.
Despite past tensions, Starmer and Trump have maintained cordial relations, having sealed a US-UK trade deal in May to lower tariffs on autos, aluminum, and steel—though it has yet to be enacted.
- Ukraine, diplomacy, and Trump factor behind closed doors
Macron and Starmer have also tried—and largely failed—to secure US backing for post-war security arrangements in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is attending the summit and is expected to hold a private meeting with Trump, following a tense Oval Office exchange earlier this year.
According to Peter Boehm, Canada’s G7 sherpa in 2018, leaders will likely pivot to address the growing foreign policy emergencies. “The foreign policy agenda has become much larger with this,” he noted.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien offered advice should Trump act out: “If Trump has decided to make a show to be in the news, he will do something crazy. Let him do it and keep talking normally.”
Leaders from India, Brazil, Ukraine, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, South Korea, and the UAE have also been invited, but many eyes remain on Trump’s bilateral meetings, which observers say he prefers to formal roundtable sessions.
“Trump doesn’t like the big round table as much as he likes the one-on-one,” said Boehm. “Leaders, and there are some new ones coming, will want to meet Donald Trump.”
