Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hold a meeting on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers meeting, in La Malbaie, Que., on March 13.SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is meeting with her G7 counterparts in the Charlevoix region of Quebec this week, a gathering that will test the allies’ ability to co-operate as trade tensions rise with the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, along with officials from Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, as well as the European Union, arrived Wednesday for meetings on Thursday and Friday.
The war in Ukraine is expected to be a major focus of the ministerial meetings as the U.S. works to secure a 30-day ceasefire with Russia. Geopolitical tensions elsewhere, including in the Middle East, are also on the agenda.
However, the gathering will be partly overshadowed by the United States‘ trade wars and escalating hostilities toward Canada.
Just before the meetings kicked off, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 25-per-cent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Wednesday, prompting Canada and the EU to respond with retaliatory tariffs.
Mr. Trump said on Tuesday on social media that the “only thing that makes sense” is for Canada to become the 51st state, which he said would make all tariffs disappear.
Before heading to Charlevoix, Ms. Joly rebuked the tariffs and questioned the U.S.’s evolving justifications for imposing them.
“The only constant in this unjustified and unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talks of annexing our country through economic coercion,” she said at a news conference.
Ms. Joly said she will be meeting with Mr. Rubio and will raise the issue of tariffs in all her G7 meetings.
Ms. Joly also warned that she expects Mr. Rubio, who will be the first White House official to visit since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, to respect Canada’s sovereignty.
“You arrive in our country, you respect our customs and our way, and obviously our sovereignty,” she said in French.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Rubio sidestepped a question on whether he agrees with Mr. Trump’s 51st state comments.
“We have a lot of other things we work on together. We defend North America through NORAD and the airspace of our continent together, not to mention the issues of Ukraine and other commonalities,” Mr. Rubio said. “That’s what the meeting is about. It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada.”
Perrin Beatty, the former head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said tariffs will be the “elephant in the room” at the G7 meetings.
“While it may or may not be on the official agenda, there’s little doubt that there will be plenty of conversations, both with Marco Rubio and without him,” he said.
U.S. relations with allies have also been fraught over its stand on Ukraine, including Mr. Trump’s hostile reception of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House a couple of weeks ago.
The U.S. is now seeking a temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine after Mr. Rubio secured Ukraine’s support for its proposal during a visit to Saudi Arabia.
The Trump administration has also restored military aid for Ukraine as well as intelligence sharing, which were both previously revoked.
John Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto, said he will be looking to see whether the G7 communiqué this week will mention Ukraine’s territorial integrity, wording that has been used in the past to reaffirm Ukraine’s right to all its territories.
“We’ll have to see if Marco Rubio’s United States is fully back on track with the rest of the G7,” he said.
G7 ministers are also expected to discuss conflicts in the Middle East, where a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains fragile. Syria has also devolved into sectarian violence in recent days.
“The G7 will be strongly unified in issuing a strong statement, perhaps with supporting actions to make sure that the precarious ceasefire in Gaza holds,” Mr. Kirton said.
“The other immediate thing is, as soon as the communiqué is issued, the trucks carrying food and medical supplies must be allowed to enter Gaza.”
While the foreign ministers’ meeting will be a lower stake gathering than the leaders’ summit in June, it will offer some clues on whether G7 countries can continue to co-operate even as relations with the U.S. are chilled.
Christopher Sands, director of the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute, said it’s not unusual for the U.S. to find itself outside of consensus in the G7.
Mr. Trump famously revoked his signature from the communiqué after the leaders’ summit in Charlevoix in 2018, after taking offence to comments from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on tariffs, Dr. Sands noted.
“The shadow of the [2018] Charlevoix Summit is going to be very strong on this meeting,” he said.