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As G7 leaders gather, one big question is on everyone's mind: Is Donald Trump still with his allies — or against them? His past actions and words raise serious concerns. Time to face the truth.
As G7 leaders gather, one big question is on everyone's mind: Is Donald Trump still with his allies — or against them? His past actions and words raise serious concerns. Time to face the truth.
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00:00before flying over to Kananaskis to meet and really kick off this two-day summit not only
00:05with the other G7 leaders but also with other invited officials, the European Union officials
00:09and leadership as well as leaders of Mexico and Ukraine, others not yet confirmed so far.
00:15And take a look at this year's G7. A couple of things. One is that five of these seven leaders
00:20are fairly new to their positions. It's only Italy's Maloney and Francis Macron that are
00:25sort of the veterans here, although for President Trump it is sort of, of course, a return to this
00:29group. And the other thing to note here is that all of the other six leaders have been to the White
00:34House, have been to Washington so far this year to meet with President Trump. So no new meetings
00:38for the president this week, at least not that we know of yet. But still a fairly dramatic range of
00:43issues to be discussed, trade of course being at the top of that list. As you mentioned, the president
00:48spoke with reporters on his way here yesterday and did say that he expects, quote, a few new deals
00:54this week. We know he has bilaterals set, for example, with Canada and Mexico. So we'll have to
00:59see those deals have proven elusive so far, but it's one major deliverable we could see
01:03so far this week. Then, of course, there's the backdrop of everything going on in Israel
01:07and Iran. And the White House has told us other issues like critical minerals, AI and energy
01:12security are going to be top of mind for them as well. But one thing, guys, that I have confirmed
01:17talking with a Canadian official last night, and this is different for this year, there will be no
01:21joint communique coming out of this G7. And that is something different. That tends to be one of the
01:27only few concrete things that comes out of a G7 summit. It's the leaders coming together
01:31sort of in a show of unity to sign on to a set of shared goals. Canada, as the host country,
01:37because of how much disunity and how much fracturing this is this year, they're trying
01:40to avoid some disagreements, and they're not pushing for a joint statement of any kind. We
01:45might see individual leader statements, we might see some on specific issues, but no joint statement.
01:50And again, that underscores sort of the fracturing here. And I want to leave you guys with this.
01:53If we can pull up this photo from 2018. This is the last time Canada was the host country
01:58of the G7. And this became kind of an iconic photo of that summit with most of the leaders
02:03on one side of a table, President Trump on the other side with his arms crossed,
02:08kind of defiantly. And it became the symbol of that summit when there was a joint statement
02:12after the president left. He withdrew the U.S. from the statement once he was on Air Force One,
02:18amid a disagreement with then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. So with Canada back as the host country,
02:22with President Trump back in the White House and returning to the summit this year. There's a lot
02:26of speculation here, guys, from everyone I've spoken with, as to whether we might see some sort
02:30of similar dynamic this time around. Guys?
02:33Well, I guess by getting rid of that joint communique, you take some of the drama out of
02:38it in advance. We've kind of been hearing that that was going to be the deal, that there are just
02:41too many issues where they have too many different opinions to be able to get everybody on the same page.
02:48I mean, seeing John Bolton there shows you how long ago and how different everything is
02:52at this point.
02:54Absolutely. That's right. And yet, Joe, I will say the similarities, the biggest one I'm only
02:58going to highlight is just the trade issues that we're back into that with all these side deals
03:03wanting to be struck and the tariffs that are back on stage. Everyone's hoping to clinch their side
03:08deal, but none of these leaders wants to go home, having looked like they've capitulated to the U.S.
03:12in any way at the same time. So they sort of want to stand strong while trying to get a deal.
03:16And remember, we're just about three weeks from the tariff deadline potentially kicking back into
03:20effect. So that's sort of the backdrop to all of these side discussions.