Some success for Carney, not a win for the G7

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If Mark Carney’s task at the G7 was handling Donald Trump while he was in the Rocky Mountains, the Prime Minister can tick it off as job done. There was no big explosion.

There were signs the rookie Prime Minister was an able host and Trump handler. The U.S. President called a trade deal with Canada achievable, even if he still wants tariffs. He agreed to several joint G7 statements, including one on the Iran-Israel conflict, although he treated the G7 position as irrelevant after he left a day early to deal with that crisis.

For Mr. Carney, judged against the limited standards of hosting a summit with Mr. Trump, it was a success. For the G7 as a group, it wasn’t.

This was a G6-plus-one, and they couldn’t bridge the big things. They are miles apart on trade. They couldn’t agree on a common position on Ukraine.

G7 agrees on narrow set of issues as trade tensions overshadow summit

In personal diplomacy with Mr. Trump, Mr. Carney had a decent outing.

He sucked in his cheeks stoically and silently during a joint photo op Monday when the U.S. President rambled about how Russia’s Vladimir Putin should be allowed back into the group to make it the G8 again. He flattered Mr. Trump in his opening statement by saying the G7 would be nothing without U.S. leadership, and Mr. Trump’s personal leadership. Mr. Trump called the Prime Minister “Mark,” and said nice things about him. The personal PM-to-POTUS relationship is still good. Check.

That beats the last G7 in Canada in 2018, when Mr. Trump took exception to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s relatively mild comment about trade, disavowing the joint summit statements. The rift was never mended.

This time, Mr. Trump expressed a touch of optimism about some kind of Canada-U.S. trade deal. The two leaders agreed to accelerate talks for some kind of interim deal – though Mr. Trump said he still wants tariffs. Still talking on trade, no implosion. Good enough for now.

Of course, Mr. Trump flew off a day early and told reporters on Air Force One that tariffs are quicker and easier and he still thinks Canada should become the 51st state. In retrospect, that felt almost inevitable. Mr. Trump started a post-departure squabble with France’s President Emmanuel Macron over the Iran-Israel conflict via a social media post, too.

Coyne: The G7 is dead – time to move on to the G6

But the G7, the group, didn’t succeed.

Everyone knew going in that for all the others, the goal was to avoid a clash with Mr. Trump. They wanted to show a little common action. Talks over a final communiqué had been scrapped for narrow statements.

There was no joint statement of support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia. A Canadian government source said the U.S. wouldn’t agree to one – but Mr. Carney brushed it off, noting he’d made his own statement on Ukraine as G7 chair and had run all the wording past G7 leaders at dinner, including Mr. Trump.

At any rate, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had travelled across the world on a night when Russia launched a deadly attack on Kyiv, but Mr. Trump wasn’t there when he arrived. Canada followed European countries in announcing new sanctions and substantial military aid, but the future of crucial U.S. support for Ukraine was left as a question hanging in the air.

What the G7 statements released by world leaders say and don’t say

It sometimes seemed like some G7 leaders were stubbornly trying to return to a world before the stubborn Mr. Trump. Mr. Macron made an economically literate argument for Western nations to solve trade-imbalance issues together, without tariffs. But Mr. Trump wants tariffs. On his way back to Washington, he told reporters that if there aren’t bilateral deals, he’ll just tell each country how much they have to pay.

As G7 host, one of Mr. Carney’s tasks was to moderate the group and drive a common agenda. They agreed on some things and issued statements, for example, on developing critical minerals.

There’s still a rift on trade. No joint position on Ukraine. They issued a common statement on Iran but by the time Mr. Trump was in the air, he was off on his own.

Mr. Macron painted the summit as a success, noting the leaders issued six joint statements on issues ranging from critical minerals to transnational repression.

“You can’t ask the Canadian chair to settle all the issues of the world today, either,” Mr. Macron said. “That would be unfair. But he held the group together.”

Sort of.

Mr. Carney told reporters it was an opportunity for frank discussions and building relationships, which will carry through, for example, till next week’s NATO summit. And for as long as Mr. Trump was there, there was no blow-up.

For Mr. Carney, that was important. But for the G7, it was a summit that couldn’t muster common purpose.