Wishful Thinking

Trump’s attempt to reshape G7 has little chance of success By Dong Yifan & Sun Chenghao

U.S. President Donald Trump had expected to host the Group of Seven (G7) Summit in his Florida resort in late June. He tried but gave up due to disappointing response from the leaders of other member countries. In May, despite the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, Trump proposed a face-to-face leaders’ meeting instead of the previously planned online event. Also, he attempted to expand G7 to G11 by including Australia, the Republic of Korea (ROK), India and Russia.

However, Trump’s proposal failed to gain support. German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined his invitation, citing the overall COVID-19 situation. French President Emmanuel Macron was open to travel to the U.S. “only if the sanitary conditions allow.” A possible invitation for Russia met with resistance from Canada, Britain and the EU. On May 30, Trump announced that he decided to postpone the summit to September or later.

Publicity stunt

Trump’s attempt to exploit the G7 Summit by including more members or even achieving a thaw in U.S.-Russian ties aimed at scoring political points or creating a diplomatic legacy of his first term. He hoped it would give him an edge in the upcoming presidential election.

Winning a second term has been the top priority of Trump and all his agendas are designed to serve this purpose. However, the U.S. domestic situation is becoming increasingly unfavorable for him.

The COVID-19 epidemic continues to rage in the U.S., and seems unlikely to wane in near future. The Trump administration’s weak response and his prioritizing the election and the economy over people’s health and lives have been heavily criticized by the public and the Democratic Party. As for the economy, stock market meltdowns and the high unemployment rate might undo Trump’s “economic achievements,” which he loves to brag about. Moreover, the killing of George Floyd, an African American, by a white Minneapolis police officer has once again exposed racism and social segregation in the U.S. Nationwide protests have erupted, seriously impacting Trump’s approval ratings.

Trump also intended to revive the G7. The bloc, comprising Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S., was established to coordinate economic policies of major Western industrial powers to maintain their international economic dominance in the 1970s. As it represents only some developed economies’ interests, its influence has continued to decline as the international landscape evolved from Western dominance to West-East balance. The financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated that developed countries were unable to shoulder the responsibility of global economic governance, and the Group of 20 (G20), which includes emerging market economies, has since played an increasingly important role. Worse still, the G7 summits after Trump took office have seen frequent disputes due to divergences between the U.S. and other members.

Also, as the U.S. is intensifying its strategic containment of China, it attempted to make the G7, and the proposed G11, a platform for its efforts. By readmitting Russia into the group, Trump hoped to bring it on the U.S. side. The invitation for Australia is a bonus for its stance against China. The proposed participation of India is an attempt to further exploit the geopolitical rift between China and India and to draw India into playing a key role in the so-called Indo-Pacific strategy. And wooing the ROK means stirring up trouble in the Korean Peninsula, whose stability is essential to China’s development.

Wrong calculation

But Trump’s wishful thinking proved to be a mirage. Due to health concerns over COVID-19, it is hard for European leaders to go to the U.S. to back Trump for the presidential election. Although European countries have mostly lifted coronavirus lockdowns, they are still cautious about reopening international travel, especially across continents. Meetings of leaders of major EU countries like Germany and France have been held online, so have the EU leaders’ summit and ministerial meetings. As the U.S. epidemic situation remains grave, leaders’ travel to the U.S. will not only be highly risky, but also set a bad example to the public, making prevention and control efforts more difficult domestically.

Moreover, the divergences between European countries and the U.S. make European leaders uninterested in a nonessential meeting as they think no tangible results would be achieved. In recent years, they have sparred on multiple issues such as trade, the Iranian nuclear deal, climate change and arms control. The G7 Summit in Canada in 2018 and in France in 2019 all ended in discord, and the coordination role of this platform has weakened significantly.

Like Trump, leaders of major European countries also hope to revive the G7, but they hope more to give play to its role as a platform to shape global governance and international systems based on rules. However, broad multilateral cooperation has been rejected by the Trump administration. Especially during the pandemic, the U.S. slandered, attacked and eventually withdrew from the World Health Organization, a decision that disappointed European countries the most.

China containment

Trump’s efforts to turn the G7 into a U.S. tool to contain China may also end in vain. First, most G7 countries are unwilling to be dragged into the U.S. campaign. For example, European countries and the U.S. have different interests and agendas in their relationships with China. The U.S. develops its China policy from the point of maintaining its hegemony, while the focus of the EU is maintaining cooperation based on existing mechanisms and rules. Therefore, although the EU and the U.S. both think deeply about the impact of China’s rapid development and how to respond to it, they are far from reaching a consensus on strategic cooperation to contain China.

Second, Australia, India and the ROK have their own plans and are unlikely to be pawns of the U.S. although they are part of the Indo-Pacific strategy, which is an important part of Trump’s overall strategy to maintain the U.S. global dominance. The Indo-Pacific strategy was initiated to serve U.S. interests. This has been clearly recognized by regional countries and they are interested only in gaining some benefits from this strategy. For example, India plans to synergize the Indo-Pacific strategy with its Act East policy, a policy to increase economic and military ties with several countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific. But it is almost impossible that New Delhi will act in accordance with Washington’s orders and sacrifice its strategic independence. The ROK is also fully aware that siding with the U.S. will put its ties with China at risk.

Lastly, Russia’s readmission is highly controversial among G7 members. The Trump administration has striven to improve bilateral ties with Russia. However, European countries are concerned about the security threat posed by Russia since the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2013. With the U.S. trying to restore the G8, European countries worry that the U.S. would give up its security promise to them for its own strategic interests.

Meanwhile, Russia will not be easily tricked by the U.S. attempts to sow discord between it and China after it has long been suppressed by Western countries. According to Maria Zakharova, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, “it is obvious that it is hardly possible to implement serious global initiatives without China.”