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WASHINGTON: Outgoing United States President Donald Trump has not planned to host a Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies summit after canceling a June meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, three diplomatic sources said. on Wednesday (November 18).
The Republican president, who has refused to accept the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the November 3 election, has not made a final decision, but time is running out to plan a large summit before handing over power on November 20. January next year, he said. one of the diplomatic sources and a fourth source familiar with the matter.
Three diplomatic sources said the Trump administration had not come close to dates or an agenda for a possible G7 summit.
While an online meeting would still be possible, no joint statement of any kind has been worked on, a process that generally takes months, one of the sources said.
The White House declined to comment.
Britain, which takes over the rotating US G7 presidency in January, congratulated Biden on his victory last week and invited him to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland next year, as well as a summit. of the G7.
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Trump first canceled plans for an in-person summit on June 10 in March due to the pandemic, but then tried to revive it, only to abandon plans in May after German leader Angela Merkel said she would not attend and others expressed concerns. .
In August, he said he was willing to organize the meeting in a “calmer atmosphere” after the presidential elections, but no further action had been taken, one of the sources said.
Trump also said he would expand the guest list to include Australia, Russia, South Korea and India, dismissing the G7 as “a very outdated group of countries.”
Trump’s push to include Russia was met with cold reception from Germany and other allies.
Russia was expelled from what was then the G8 in 2014 when Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama was president of the United States, after Moscow annexed the Crimea region to Ukraine.
Russia still has the territory, and several G7 governments have rejected Trump’s previous calls to readmit Moscow.
The G7 brings together the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, and the European Union also attends. The group began meeting in 1975, initially without Canada.
