FOREIGN POLICY/NATO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Leaders from the world’s major industrialized nations began talks on Friday [5-26-17] at a G7 summit in Sicily which is expected to expose deep divisions with U.S. President Donald Trump over trade and climate change.
The two-day summit, at a cliff-top hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, began a day after Trump blasted NATO allies for spending too little on defense and described Germany’s trade surplus as “very bad” in a meeting with EU officials in Brussels.
After receiving warm receptions in Saudi Arabia and Israel, Trump’s confrontational stance with long-standing partners in Europe cast a cloud over the meeting in Taormina, where leaders are due to discuss terrorism, Syria, North Korea and the global economy.
‘No doubt, this will be the most challenging G7 summit in years,’ Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said before the meeting.
White House economic adviser Gary Cohn predicted ‘robust’ discussions on trade and climate.
Trump was elected in November after a campaign in which he rejected many of the tenets that the Group of Seven has stood for, including free trade, multilateralism and the liberal democratic values.”
-Steve Holland and Elizabeth Piper, “Trump and other leaders clash on trade, climate at G7,” Reuters, May 26, 2017 10:05am