The Decibel - Trump, Iran-Israel attacks loom large over G7 summit talks

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Every year, some of the world’s most powerful leaders meet to discuss political and economic issues in the G7 summit. This year’s meeting, held in Kananaskis, Alberta, wrapped up on Tuesday. It was also the first G7 summit for Prime Minister Mark Carney.The G7 offered an opportunity for leaders to try to improve relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, whose second term has been marked by tensions and trade wars. After increasing attacks between Israel and Iran, Trump left the summit on Monday night to deal with the “big stuff” escalating in the Middle East. Nathan VanderKlippe is an international correspondent for The Globe. He’s on the show to talk about what was discussed at the G7, how Trump’s departure affects discussions on the war in Ukraine, and what a successful G7 summit looks like in Canada.  Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] 

The G7 summit wrapped up on Tuesday. It's where some of the world's most powerful leaders meet to discuss political and economic issues. This year, it was held in Cananascus, Alberta. It's quite an extraordinary place. It's nestled in the Rockies and is a real sort of mountain treasure for Alberta. That's Nathan Vanderklip. He's an international correspondent for The Globe,

and he was in Cananascus for the G7. It's quite remote, so that has its own advantages for leaders, including Jean Chrétien, who organized the last one in 2002 in Cananascus, to be out in an isolated place that protesters can't really get to. And then, of course, behind all this, there's this concerted effort to keep the leaders safe from the grizzly bears, which are one

of the many potentially dangerous wildlife that roam through Cananaskis. They've been actually a top security concern. One of the EU delegates, I'm told, saw a grizzly on an adjacent golf course on Monday morning. Grizzlies aside, this year's G7 summit was the first for Prime Minister Mark Carney. In fact, five of the seven leaders have been newly elected since the last summit. One of those leaders is US.S. President Donald Trump.

The G7 offered an opportunity for other leaders to try and improve relations with Trump. The start of his second term has been marked by tensions and trade wars. But Trump left early on Monday night, saying he needed to deal with, quote, big stuff, referring to the attacks between Israel and Iran. That conflict has cast a shadow over the summit. Between that, the war in Ukraine, and competing trade priorities, there's questions about what the leaders at the G7 can actually accomplish. So today, Nathan is here. We reached him in nearby Banff.

He'll tell us what's been discussed at the G7, how Trump's departure affects decisions around the war in Ukraine, and what a successful summit looks like for Canada. I'm Maynika Ramen-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Nathan, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me.

So you and I are speaking around noon on Tuesday. This is the last day of the G7 summit. As the host, Prime Minister Mark Carney kind of sets the stage here. So what is his main goal for the summit? Well, I think coming in, his main goal was to make this summit relevant. And relevant, I think, means a number of things. It means that it is seen to be doing something,

to have outcomes that are meaningful, that are more than just rhetoric. Relevant means that the G7 as a body of leaders of industrialized democracies continues to be an important decision-making body in guiding sort of economic and other policies and events around the world and relevant in the sense that there can be some form of unity secured between these seven countries plus the EU.

And of course that means navigating the position of these other countries relative to the United States and to Donald Trump. Okay, so some form of relevance it sounds like is maybe kind of the goal here. I have to ask about expectations going into this though. What were expectations like ahead of this G7? Low.

I think that's probably the easiest way to put it. The expectations have generally been low. There's been perennial questions about the value of the G7, the value of the immense amount of money and hassle that goes into hosting these events. But I think particularly at the moment, given that we have a president in the United States, as well as a broader, I think, political thrust in the United States that extends beyond the White House into Congress, and through the electorate that is questioning the way multilateral systems have operated, the US place in the world. Given all

of that, I think there's been, you know, questions about just how effective a body like the G7 can be. And I think we saw that coming in, where for many countries coming to Cananaskis, their chief aim was not to achieve some sort of big moment of unity and a cuneque, which is a traditional outcome of these things, but in fact to sit down for

talks directly with the United States. And then, of course, we saw that expectation setting from the Canadian side as well, in which they effectively said, we're probably not going to have a joint communique. Nobody expects that anymore. There may instead be, by the time people are listening to this, a series of individual statements that are made on topics, on particular specific topics, but not one large overarching communique. And this won't be the first time that has happened, but it would be one way for the Canadian hosts behind this to try to come up with a system that allows them to try to make some forms of progress without the difficult negotiations that would come with getting everybody to sign off on one big master statement.

Yeah, this is interesting. So as you said, instead of the usual kind of joint communique, there might be some smaller statements that come out of it. What exactly does that signal to you, Nathan? Like the fact that, you know, even going into this, that they didn't think they could get that universal communique. Well, I think that's just... I think that's a recognition of reality to be honest. I mean, I don't think anybody could look at the direction of travel in the United States relative to even its closest partners and allies and expect that there was as multiple people in my reporting

on this called it a kumbaya moment here in the Canadian Rockies. And so I think that's just a reflection of the way things are and an attempt to deal with the world as it is and to continue to try to make some form of headway and to continue to try to find a common ground where it exists between these countries. So Nathan, you mentioned that expectations for this G7 are low and I imagine that part of that also has to do with the last time that Canada hosted the G7. Back in 2018 this was in Charlevoix, Quebec and that

did not end well mostly down to President Donald Trump again. Can you just remind us what happened with that meeting? Right well first of all President Trump left a bit early from that meeting and as he was in the air and as he was reacted very strongly and came out with a tweet, effectively, withdrawing U.S. participation in the Joint Communique, which had already, as best we understand, been agreed to, and then directly attacking, saying Justin Trudeau was very dishonest and weak. And so it ended up in sort of what had appeared to be the attainment of some form of a unified outcome being disrupted by Donald Trump, of course, by social media.

Yeah, so that's in our memories from the last time that Canada hosted this meeting. And of course, once again, Donald Trump did leave the summit early. He left on Monday night saying that he was leaving to deal with the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Nathan, what kind of impact did Trump's early departure have on this summit? Do we know yet? We don't know yet. What we do know is that the Canadian side appears to have

succeeded in securing US sign-off on a statement, a joint statement that is about Iran, the Iran and Israel situation, that came out on Monday already. And when you say joint statement, this is then something that all the members of the G7 have signed onto. Correct, yes. So, I mean, what we're expecting is joint statements

on a few different individual subjects. And this was one of them. And so for Canada Canada in terms of the baseline of how these summits run which is trying to get a bunch of people to agree to wording on certain things and commitments on certain things there was success in trying to get a unified voice on that what that means who knows I mean it's very clear that Donald Trump is headed back to the White House so he can be in the situation room and make decisions from there on what happens with Iran.

And those situations are going to be made by the US alone without a great deal of regard for what other countries in the G7 want to happen. Nonetheless, it was a statement of unity. And so for Canada, that will be something that's valuable. Most of the meetings, there were still some meetings scheduled on Tuesday, but most of the meetings, the actual G7 meetings between the core members of the G7 were scheduled for Monday.

So Donald Trump was actually able to attend most of those. He was able to attend the dinners and he stuck around for the family photo. So there is this picture of everyone, all these leaders standing together in front of this glorious landscape in the Rockies. You know, they had a final dinner together before the president left. And so for some of those things that the kind of the core of the G7 agenda, the US president was there for that.

Tuesday was a day in which many of the other folks invited to come by Canada, by Prime Minister Mark Carney, this is the day for many of them to be here, including Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, including the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and so Donald Trump won't be here for those discussions. That is clearly going to be a hit to Ukraine's hopes for this in terms of Ukraine's ambition, and frankly, the ambition of other parties including Canada, including the European Union to really push for a more robust package

of sanctions against Russia. They were hoping of course to get United States participation in that. It's not clear whether that's going to happen. Donald Trump was asked about this on Monday and made some comments that suggested all these things are very difficult It's it's very expensive for us to look at these sanctions that sort of thing So there's clearly going to be effect on some of these non g7 core members from the absence of Donald Trump In Canada ask us for those talks

Yeah, and I do want to ask you about Zelensky and Modi in a little bit, too But I guess just coming back to this idea of you, Trump leaving early and not being around for the second day, do we have a sense of the vibe around him leaving? Like, was it acrimonious? Was it not that bad? What's the sense there? At the moment, really all we know is what we saw, and what we saw was this parade of world leaders coming out for this family photo yesterday, which happened shortly after the announcement was made that that President Trump would be leaving. They struck a pretty friendly note. Donald Trump said he had a great time. He felt like things were friendly and things were good. He said a couple of times of being in Canaanascus,

I loved it. And then you had Prime Minister Mark Carney, the host saying that he understood why Donald Trump had to leave. And then you had Prime Minister Mark Carney, the host, saying that he understood why Donald Trump had to leave. And so they, you know, in public anyways, they struck a pretty friendly note. We had in Canada, the prime minister's office saying, no, no, no, we did get a heads up that President Trump was leaving. We didn't find out about this on social media like everyone else. And so there was an attempt to suggest that there was an understanding of the president's need to go to respond to an unfolding global crisis with regard to Iran's nuclear program and these hostilities taking place

between Iran and Israel. OK. And it does seem like Trump and Carney actually did manage to get some stuff done before Trump left. They met on Monday to discuss the trade war between the US and Canada. And they said they'd agreed to come to an economic and security deal that would end this trade

war within 30 days. How promising is this, Nathan? That seems like a good thing, right? I suppose we'll know a lot better 30 days from now. I mean, what we can say for certain is that they talked. They had a private meeting ahead of the official start of the G7 which would seem to go on for about 25 minutes or so and the Canadian side was pleased that the duration of that meeting the two sides then had their teams meeting to talk

primarily about trying to hammer out some form of trade deal. What we also know is that they did not come to some sort of resolution on that. And so they agreed to meet later this week, whether that happens in Cananascus or whether that happens elsewhere, we don't yet know. President Trump has said that he has left one of his chief trade negotiators, Secretary Besant, here in Alberta, where presumably he will be talking, or potentially speaking with the Canadian side, as well as other countries that are also engaged in trade talks with the United States. So they will continue to push forward on that agenda,

even without President Trump here. We heard from Canada's ambassador to the United States, as well as Dominic LeBlanc, who's the cabinet minister, is in charge of leading some of these, the US-Canada trade file for Canada. We heard from them on Monday, and they said that it was clear that there is a desire to accelerate an outcome. We also heard them say that Canada continues to push for a zero tariff regime for trade with the United States. And so that's the Canadian side. A few hours later, we heard Donald Trump speaking on Air Force One saying there's gonna be tariffs,

unless, you know, if Canada remains an independent country effectively, there's going to be tariffs. So there is clearly a gulf that remains. How significant that gulf remains, in which sectors and that sort of thing, you know, the Canadian side has been very very Deliberate about not speaking to those things. We also heard Donald Trump addressing this directly saying, you know

I've got a simple idea tariffs. I'm a tariff person. I've always been a tariff. It's simple. It's easy it's precise and it just goes very quickly and I think Mark has a more complex idea, but also very good. So we're going to look at both and we're going to see what we're going to come out with something. So again, these are signals that, you know, what we didn't see was a huge rupture. So I suppose one could take that as a sign of continuing progress, but certainly no full outcome. We'll be right back.

So Nathan, you and I are speaking on Tuesday, which is the day that the leaders are meeting to discuss the war in Ukraine. Carney has invited Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to this summit. But with Trump having left on Monday night, of course, he won't be part of these discussions on Tuesday. Do we know how his absence could affect these conversations about the war in Ukraine? It seems pretty clear that what's going to happen is that there is going to be a form of agreement between some of the folks who remain in Alberta to act on Ukraine. We've seen from the European Union a desire for strengthened sanctions. They are preparing an 18th sanction package against Russia. We saw Tuesday morning

that Canada has agreed to more than four billion dollars in additional support as well as new sanctions on this, this quote unquote, shadow fleet of ships that Russia has been using to get around restrictions on trade with Russia. And so, you know, there are individual actions that are taking place, but it seems at this point in time, we don't have any expectation that the United States will be joining those additional sanctions. In fact, what we saw notably from President Trump on Monday was some of the strongest advocacy with regard to Russia. You spend so much time talking about Russia, and he's no longer at the table. So it makes life more complicated. But you wouldn't have had the work.

President Trump saying it would be better to have him back at the table. That didn't work particularly well the last time. But of course that's what we heard from the president. Yeah, that's, that's, he was making a comment about how it used to be the G8 and now it is the G7 because Russia is no longer there. That's true. So, so it's interesting. So it sounds like, you know, Canada's put forward $4.3 billion in new Canadian support for Ukraine. We've seen the European Union also kind of pledge their support here, but without the US being there, that part of it is really absent then. The US part and of course I mean the US has tremendous amounts of power with regard to trade and sanctions given the primacy of the US dollar and the way

the US dollar can be used to exert coercion and that sort of thing. But nonetheless, I mean this is a continuation of a trend. I mean, what we have been seeing over the last year or two is a continued commitment, certainly by Europe and also by Canada, to increase military and financial support for Ukraine to operate on its own on a sanctions basis. And Europe matters when it comes to Russia. I mean, Europe matters because Europe has historically been a very considerable consumer of Russia's most important export, which is fossil fuels.

But that said, I mean we've now seen a lot of those Russian exports find their way into other places and without sort of a U.S. coercion, it's unclear how much Canada, the EU and others will be able to do to sort of inflict serious additional financial pain on Russia. Yeah. And of course, there's also this escalation between Iran and Israel in the last few days, which is hanging over the summit. Trump said that's the reason why he was leaving early, and we've already talked about how

the leaders have put out a joint statement in response to these attacks. But Nathan, is this escalation having any other effect on the summit and the conversations that are being had there? Well, there is potentially an upside. I've spoken to a couple of people about this who said people who have a great deal of experience in terms of both Canada's engagement, Canada's role in international summits like the G7, one of them suggested it's probably kind of an even effect in terms of the upsides versus the downsides in Donald Trump leaving. But, you know, we have seen the potential for

really disruptive clashes when people like President Zelensky get into a room with President Trump, and those two will no longer be in a room together this week. Does that make for potentially a more productive conversation? I'm not sure. It probably makes for a more collegial conversation. You're saying this because Zelensky arrived on Tuesday and Trump left on Monday. So they actually didn't cross paths here in Canada. No. And in fact, I don't actually believe they were on Canadian soil at the same time. It just just just the way that the flights worked.

And so there's no real chance for them to clash in that way. So I think that makes for the possibility of a more collegial outcome. We have already seen a meeting of the minds between President Zelensky and some of his counterparts here at the G7 minus the U.S. But does that make for a more productive outcome? I don't think so, because I think to have the most productive outcome possible with regard to that ongoing conflict, with regard to additional pressure on Russia, you very clearly need the United States to take part.

Hmm. I also want to ask you about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He's one of the non-G7 leaders who's attending the summit. This usually happens that other leaders are sometimes invited to take part in these summits. Of course, relations between Canada and India have not been very smooth ever since September 2023

with the killing of the Sikh activist, Hardeeb Singh Nijer. And Karne has faced a little bit of backlash for inviting Modi in light of this. What has Karne said about why he invited the Indian prime minister? Well, he said that when it comes to some of the major priorities at this summit, when it comes to talking about energy security

or critical minerals, when it comes to talking about AI, that those discussions to be meaningful must include India. He's also said that there has been an agreement to deal with some of these broader issues with regard to criminal activity and the potential of other countries being involved in that, that those should be sort of dealt with effectively on a policing level and that there's been an agreement to do that. So clearly this is an effort by Prime Minister Carney to reset the Canadian relationship with India.

We'll see what happens. I think even in India, the expectations are reasonably low, basically suggesting that a good outcome for Canada and India in this would be just an agreement to start talking again, not an agreement for anything particular as far as a tangible outcome. But we may see that, and clearly it was a gesture for the Canadian Prime Minister to invite the Indian Prime Minister to come, as well as for Prime Minister Modi to agree to do that. But as you said, it's been a controversial one. What we've just seen from Canada is to say, listen, we have our differences, but India

is a major, major power in terms of population and economy and that sort of thing and needs to be part of some of these conversations for them to be meaningful. Okay. So from what you're saying, it sounds like Canada invited India for economic reasons, essentially, to try to make some headway when it comes to these agreements. Does it signal anything about, I guess more specifically, what Canada wants from its relationship with India? Well, I mean, Canada's in a situation where it's having to reconsider where its place

is in the world in a whole bunch of different ways. And there is clearly a very robust jostling for influence between China and the United States. Canada is caught directly in between that. And leaning in either direction carries its own sets of risks. And so there is, I think, for Canada, a real imperative to look for other partners to really kind of attempt to bolster relationships with other partners around the world, be that economic relations and other

forms of relations. Europe is an obvious one, and we saw language from the European Union this week that suggested that they are preparing to welcome Canada into a broader kind of additional defense spending plans in Europe. These are the Rearm Europe plans, plans essentially is what you're referring to? Yeah, the safe plan they call it, which you know is a joint procurement plan and Canada could potentially play some role in that and so we got a pretty clear signal from the EU this week that you know that is on the way but in economic

terms I mean India is now some measures, the most populous country in the world. And there's clearly very strong personal and professional and other ties between Canada and India. And so it would make sense for Canada to look to what more can be achieved in this relationship with India as well. So Nathan, we started off by talking about Carney's goals going into this summit. I know we are still a few hours away from the G7 ending. There's still going to be some meetings taking place this afternoon and this evening. But from what you've seen, could people call this G7 a success?

It depends on how you define success. Depends on what your expectations were if you define success as a G7 summit that ended without some sort of open conflagration with Donald Trump or between Donald Trump and other leaders. I think we can say conclusively that that did not happen in the room because Donald Trump is no longer in the room. We can't at this point in time on Tuesday say conclusively that that has happened with regard to the G7 because the G7 is not over yet and Donald Trump of course has shown an ability as we discussed earlier to disrupt these proceedings from afar after leaving. But you know did we see productive conversations between Canada and Europe? Yes.

Did we see productive conversations between Canada and the United States on trade? The answer appears to be yes, no conclusion, but certainly they are, they continue to talk in earnest. Did we see a sort of an amicable set of personal relationships between Donald Trump and the member states of the G7? As best we can tell, the answer to that is yes. So all of those things would point to a form of success for Canada in hosting this G7,

although I think by some measures a modest one. Nathan, so good to talk to you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. That was Nathan Vanderklip, an international correspondent for The Globe and Mail. That's it for today. I'm Maynika Ramon-Wilms.

This episode was mixed by Ali Graham. Our producers are Madeleine White, Michal Stein and Ali Graham. David Grosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Matt Frainer is our managing editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.