G7 (Group of Seven)

On June 2, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald J. Trump spoke by phone. According to the Indian government’s call readout, the president “conveyed his desire to expand the ambit of the [G7] grouping beyond the existing membership, to include other important countries including India. In this context, he extended an invitation to Prime Minister Modi to attend the next G-7 Summit to be held in USA.” This confirmation from the Indian government builds upon the president’s remarks, reported on May 30, about his plans to convene a larger G7 summit including Australia, India, South Korea—and Russia; in his words, to “discuss China’s future.” Predictably, Trump’s invitation to India has generated substantial interest within India, as has the invitation to Australia similarly received coverage there. In the United States, more attention appears to be directed toward the president’s plans to include Russia in this enlarged grouping. There’s little economic logic to a grouping that would include Russia, no longer among the world’s top ten economies at market exchange rates, while excluding China, the world’s second largest economy (largest if using purchasing power parity terms). But the G7 has never professed to be a gathering of “developed and developing economies from every continent” along the lines of the G20. The G7 was created as a consultation of industrialized economies, all of which have been democracies since the grouping’s origins in 1975. The original G6 included the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy, with Canada joining to make the G7 by 1976. Russia participated in the G8 from 1998 to 2014 until its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea caused the group to eject it. In the decades since the G7 formed, emerging markets have grown to become far more important to the global economy—and large emerging markets like China and India have become crucial to every issue of collective action that the G7 is preoccupied with, such as climate change, clean energy, and health pandemics. Both countries participate in the G20 but have not been part of the G7. Should the criteria of “advanced industrialized” still apply as a threshold for G7 inclusion when countries still in the middle-income or lower-middle-income categories have become so central? My answer to that is no, and I argued in my book that it’s time to consider Indian membership in an expanded G7 given the size of its economy and the fact that, for all its troubles, India is a democracy. Democracy sets India apart from China, so it could be a conceivable and logical expansion to include India in an enlarged G7, but not China. But using this yardstick, the selection of Australia and South Korea spurs questions about other democratic economies around the same size not on the list. What about Brazil and Mexico? Or Indonesia? A ranking of the ten largest economies that are also democracies—using market exchange rates—would suggest inclusion of Brazil, India, and South Korea in a “D10” grouping along with all members of the existing G7. That same ranking using purchasing power parity would include India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Korea—but not Italy and Canada, core G7 members. All of this is food for thought on the purpose and design of any expansion of this consultation. Countries in bold are current G7 members. Sources: Market exchange rate data (2018, latest available) comes from the World Bank. Purchasing power parity data (2020, estimated) comes from the IMF. Most of all, it’s clear that the twentieth-century institutions of global governance have not reformed to reflect the established importance of emerging economies to the world. In his own way, Trump was right to call the G7 an “outdated group of countries,” because it is. What we need, however, is a logical and consistent way to create a more relevant group for the challenges currently facing us. The invitees to the Trump G7 summit do not, as a group—and especially with the inclusion of Russia—provide that clear, coherent case for an enlarged institution.

In the absence of U.S. leadership, multilateral responses to COVID-19 have been inadequate to date.

The year ahead promises to bring several gatherings of world leaders that could either continue the trend of declining international cooperation or breathe new life into multilateralism.

Questions of legitimacy have long plagued the G7. The Trump administration's announcement of the Trump National Doral resort as the venue for next year's summit marks a new low.

When the United States takes up leadership of the G7 next year, there’s one aspect of the French playbook it should follow: recognizing the importance of gender equality to the G7 agenda.

This weekend, leaders from the G-7 will convene for their annual summit, this time in Biarritz, France. French President Emmanuel Macron, who is spearheading France’s G-7 presidency this year, bills the meeting as a chance to relaunch multilateralism, promote democracy and tame globalization to ensure it works for everyone. More likely, the gathering will expose the political, economic and ideological fault lines threatening Western solidarity and international cooperation. What a difference five years makes. Back in 2014, the G-7 gained a new and unexpected lease on life after Russia seized Crimea and earned itself an ejection from what was then the G-8. The rejuvenated G-7 seemed poised to resume its onetime role as an intimate forum for policy coordination among like-minded, advanced market democracies, as distinct from the more heterogeneous and unwieldy G-20. That rosy scenario, of course, did not play out. The intervening years would bring about the calamitous Brexit referendum and its aftermath, Donald Trump’s American presidency, and surging anti-globalist and nativist sentiments across Europe. The resulting fissures and preoccupations have further reduced the diplomatic heft of a bloc that has seen its share of global GDP decline from 70 percent three decades ago to just under 50 percent today. Trump’s election proved particularly catastrophic. At his first G-7 summit in 2017, in Taormina, Sicily, the president repudiated longstanding U.S. support for liberalized trade and signaled that the United States would leave the Paris climate accord, which he orchestrated soon after. Things got worse last year, in Charlevoix, Canada. Enraged at a perceived “betrayal” by host leader Justin Trudeau, Trump went ballistic, refusing to sign the final communique, which is usually an innocuous affair. The French government is no doubt bracing for similar theatrics, while pressing on with Macron’s ambitious vision for the summit. At the heart of his program is dealing with the adverse effects of globalization. “Our priority will be combating inequality,” his government explains. “The aim is not to abandon globalization… but rather to better regulate it so that nobody is left behind.” This is an imperative Macron has learned at home, too, after months of protests by the “Yellow Vests,” or Gilets Jaunes. Macron’s team has identified five areas where G-7 members can cooperate on global inequality. These include enhancing economic opportunity, regardless of a person’s gender and origins; taking on global environmental degradation, which disproportionately affects marginalized communities; fighting insecurity, extremism and terrorism, which lock societies in cycles of violence; expanding digital empowerment and human-centered artificial intelligence; and renewing the G-7’s partnership with Africa, so that the continent can share in global prosperity. The French government has also promised to overhaul the format of the G-7, so that it will no longer be “just a behind-closed-doors meeting between Heads of State and Government.” For the past eight months, it has solicited input from women, youth, labor, businesses, academics, scientists, civil society and think tank representatives. Gender equality has been an issue of particular importance, as France has followed in the footsteps of 2018 host nation Canada in signaling its commitment to a “feminist foreign policy.”  Macron has also expanded the Biarritz guest list beyond G-7 nations, reflecting his belief that “the time when a club of rich countries could alone define the world’s balances is long gone.” He has invited four major democracies—Australia, India, South Africa and Chile, which hosts the annual U.N. climate conference in December—as well as several African partner countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Egypt, Senegal and Rwanda. But the real summit action, as always, will reflect less the formal agenda than the underlying geopolitical, economic and domestic political pressures on the major players, often playing out on the sidelines. Expect major frictions on the following topics: Trade Wars. America’s G-7 partners will be desperate for any sign of a truce in the spiraling U.S. trade war with China, which has roiled financial markets. The dangers of a global downturn are growing, with Germany now “teetering on the edge of recession.” The Trump administration has recently taken aim at French wine exports as well, in retaliation for France’s decision to impose a 3 percent digital tax that disproportionately affects U.S. tech giants. Given the circumstances, even a tepid statement of support for reform at the World Trade Organization and new trade rules combating market distortion are tough sells. The Brexit Endgame and the EU’s Future. In a calculated snub to other G-7 leaders, Trump plans to meet with new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson en route to the summit, and to press him to proceed with a “no deal” Brexit. Their relationship is already “off to a roaring start,” as John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, enthused. In Biarritz, expect Macron and Merkel to push back hard against any sign of Trump’s continued, pernicious effort to encourage the EU’s dissolution. The Defense of Democracy. Macron desperately wants the G-7 to resume its role as a counterweight to authoritarian trends sweeping the world. Trump’s coziness with strongmen and thuggish temperament complicate that task immensely. Look for Macron to push for a common, bold stance against Russian disinformation operations in Western societies, as well as statements of support for democratic aspirations in Hong Kong and Russia. Expect Trump to resist on both counts. Digital Globalization. At their mid-July meeting in Chantilly, G-7 finance ministers and central bank governors scrutinized Facebook’s plans for a new cryptocurrency, Libra, which they view as a potential threat to national sovereignty and the functioning of the international monetary system. They also discussed the need for fairer taxation of multinational tech companies, which have often avoided taxes through profit-shifting. Expect little action on these issues, however, given salient U.S.-China technology competition and Trump’s sour grapes over Macron’s digital tax. Climate Action. Since Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord in June 2017, Macron has been the agreement’s most vocal proponent, spearheading the One Planet Summit and insisting that the world unite to meet the target of no more than 1.5°C global temperature rise from the pre-industrial period. The French president will push the G-7 for firm commitments on emissions reductions, biodiversity protections and ocean conservation, leaving Trump the odd man out again. Given Trump’s frequent outlier status, next year’s G-7 summit should be even more interesting. For the first time in seven years, the meeting returns to the United States, allowing the Trump administration at last to shape the agenda. Rather than continuing to “address more and more problems,” a Trump adviser explained last month, the White House wants to get “more focused.” As to the summit’s venue, the president has floated the idea of using the Trump National Doral Resort in Miami. Hurricane season, indeed.

President Trump’s approach to summits is fueling, rather than mitigating, global instability.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised unprecedented emphasis on women and girls over the course of this year’s Group of Seven (G7) deliberations. A group of women’s rights organizations assessed progress at the Leaders Summit in Charlevoix and issued a report card. 

The outcome of the G7 summit suggests Trump is prepared to abandon the transatlantic relationship, and even the concept of “the West,” as pillars of U.S. global engagement.

I sat down today with my colleague Stewart M. Patrick to preview the G7 Summit, which kicks off tomorrow in Taormina, Italy. We discussed the G7's relevance, its evolution, and some of the issues that are likely to dominate the conversation at the meeting. Two fun facts: 1) The G7 countries produce roughly half of the world's global economic output. 2) Four of the leaders headed to Taormina—Donald Trump, Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron, and Paolo Gentiloni are making their first appearance at a G7 meeting. So the newcomers will outnumber the veterans.  You can watch the video of our discussion below or on Facebook. (And I urge you to check out Stewart's books Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security and Best Laid Plans: The Origins of Multilateralism and the Dawn of the Cold War.)  Note: If the video is not displaying in your browser, please click here.  Corey Cooper assisted in the preparation of this post.