Leftist Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is expecting to welcome a host of world leaders to Kananaskis, Alberta, on Monday for the beginning of the annual G7 Summit – expected to address some of the world’s most pressing emergencies, including the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.
The summit formally began on Sunday, though the major meetings and discussion are expected to begin on Monday, and is expected to run through Tuesday. The G7 is an organization bringing together seven of the world’s largest economies – America, Britain, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and host Canada – to primarily discuss trade and diplomacy.
President Donald Trump is expected to attend and hold his second major meeting with Carney after his Liberal Party comfortably won the April 28 general election, as well as meetings with other heads of state. Canadian news outlets reported that Trump’s first head-of-government meeting will be with Carney on Monday morning and the engagement will mark Trump’s first visit to the country during his second term in office.
The tone of the summit is expected to depart significantly from the tenor of the event last year, hosted by Italy, due to Trump’s presence and the absence of leftist former President Joe Biden. Many of the top G7 Summit headlines in 2024 involved Biden appearing confused or lost during the event, guided by host Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni back to the group of leaders during a parachuting display.
Chinese state media mocked the 2024 summit for having a “funeral vibe” largely due to Biden’s presence.
In contrast, Trump’s last appearance at the G7 occurred in 2019. Reports from the event indicated that Trump had spiritedly engaged fellow leaders on some of the most important topics of the day, including containing Iran’s malignant jihadist influence around the world and opposing radical climate alarmist influence on energy policy.
Also on the guest list are the leaders of other friendly heads of state including South Korea, Mexico, India, and Ukraine.
The Canadian hosts described the three priorities of the summit in a message in early June as “protecting our communities,” energy security, and “security partnerships for the future.”
“Protecting our communities and the world—strengthening peace and security, countering foreign interference and transnational crime, and improving joint responses to wildfires,” the list of priorities detailed. “Building energy security and accelerating the digital transition—fortifying critical mineral supply chains and using artificial intelligence and quantum to unleash economic growth.”
Prior to the eruption of direct military conflict between Israel and Iran late last week, the top military priority expected to be discussed at the summit was the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia, a former member of the group (previously known as the G8), was expelled from the organization in 2014 after colonizing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, and Ukrainian leaders have seen been regular guests of the hosts. President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend and potentially hold a meeting with President Trump before the summit ended. Also attending and expected to prioritize discussions about Ukraine will be the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Canadian officials have emphasized in anticipation of the event that Ukraine will be high on the list of topics discussed.
The logo for the G7 summit at the Pomeroy Kananaskis Mountain Lodge stands at the press center in Banff. The “Group of Seven” (G7) is an informal alliance of democratic economic powers: Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Canada and the USA. (Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty)
“This is the opportune moment for world leaders to have conversations about Ukraine, about peace in the Middle East, about defence and security globally, about economic multilateralism and beyond,” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told reporters on Sunday, according to the Globe and Mail.
The other major conflict expected to require much of the attention of the gathered leaders is the ongoing military engagements between Israel and Iran. Following warnings from the United Nations on Thursday that Iran was flagrantly violating international law on nuclear energy and may be on the cusp of building a nuclear weapon, the government of Israel launched a barrage of airstrikes on Tehran, eliminating dozens of senior Iranian regime officials. The highest-ranking military leader eliminated so far was Major General Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
Iran has since responded to the attacks targeting their leaders by firing missiles at Israeli population centers, seeking to kill Israeli citizens. Iran has killed at least eight in Israel and injured hundreds in its retaliatory attacks, but has reportedly lost control of its entire airspace to the Israeli military.
No Middle Eastern leaders are expected to attend the event – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was reportedly invited but will not attend – though several of the high-profile guests expected have taken on prominent roles in the Middle East. Among those in attendance will be South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, one of the most virulently anti-Israel leaders in the world and an Iranian ally through the anti-American BRICS coalition. Ramaphosa infamously met with Trump in the White House in May and denied evidence of genocidal anti-white farmer sentiment in his country, even as Trump made him watch a video of radical leftist political leader Julius Malema chanting “kill the farmer!” at political events. He is expected to meet with Trump again during the summit.
The G7 allows BRICS members to attend its summits even as BRICS has rejected suggestions to extend invitations in the other directly, most prominently refusing to invite an interested French President Emmanuel Macron in 2023.
Other names expected to attend the summit are the leaders of BRICS countries India and Brazil, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, engaging in his first international event since being elected president on June 4.
Lee, an ardent leftist, is expected to present a dramatically different foreign policy perspective than his predecessor, conservative former President Yoon Suk-yeol. A presidential spokesman claimed that Lee was planning to discuss Yoon’s failed attempt at imposing martial law, which led to his impeachment and removal, as an inspirational story to the world “showcasing the greatness of Koreans.”
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