Foreign ministers of leading Western democracies meet in Canada on Thursday after seven weeks of rising tensions between U.S. allies and President Donald Trump over his upending of foreign policy on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs, Reuters reports.
The Group of Seven ministers from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, along with the EU, meet in the remote tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled in the Quebec hills for two days of meetings that in the past have broadly been consensual on the issues they face.
Top of the agenda for Washington’s partners will be getting a debriefing on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s talks on Tuesday with Kyiv in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine said it was ready to support a 30-day ceasefire deal.
But in the run-up to the first G7 meeting of Canada’s presidency, the crafting of an agreed all-encompassing final statement has been tough.
A U.S. decision to impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports immediately drew reciprocal measures from Canada and the EU, underscoring the tensions.
