G7/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “A Group of Seven summit to be held this weekend in France will likely end without a joint communique due to gaps between member nations on trade, a Japanese government official with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday [8-20-19]. It would be the first time a G7 summit ends without a communique since meetings began in 1975, underscoring the rift U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ trade policies has created among the G7 advanced economies…The summit, to be held in the southwestern French city of Biarritz on Aug 24-26, comes at a time when the U.S.-China trade war and volatile financial markets are putting pressure on policymakers to step up efforts to avert a global recession. Finding common ground between allies has become increasingly tough at the annual summit with the United States, an outlier in its approach to handling disputes over trade and the environment. Last year, Trump threw the G7’s efforts to show a united front into disorder by leaving early and backing out of a joint communique, undermining what appeared to be a fragile consensus on the trade row between Washington and its top allies.”
–Tetsushi Kajimoto, Chris Gallagher, “G7 summit seen ending without communique due to gaps on trade: source,” Reuters, August 20, 2019 5:29 pm