What to remember from the G7 summit: Trump, Iran and Ukraine

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — President Donald Trump is not known to be a fan of international gatherings of world leaders, but he changed his tune at this year’s G7 summit at a French Alpine resort, where he was buoyed by his counterparts’ support for his tentative deal with Iran to end the war.

It was an about-face for Trump, who weeks ago sharply criticized his counterparts for refusing to join the United States and Israel in bombing Iran to force the latter to abandon its nuclear aspirations – and who last year spent only a day at the G7 summit before leaving early and returning to Washington.

“We have found great unity here at the G7,” Trump told reporters at the end of the meeting. He said he had heard only positive comments from G7 leaders who were eager to see global oil prices fall as a result of the hostilities.

“This meeting couldn’t have come at a better time,” he said.

Here are some takeaways from Trump’s trip this week:

Trump finds successor if Iran deal doesn’t work

Trump likes to take credit when things work and avoid blame when they don’t. In the case of the Iran deal, he singled out Vice President JD Vance as most likely to be held responsible if things went wrong.

While Trump was at the G7, Vance was part of a media campaign to promote the deal, which he helped negotiate. He was scheduled to represent the United States in a signing ceremony in Switzerland on Friday.

A reporter asked Trump if there was a scenario in which he would look like a “genius” if he sent Vance to sign the deal and things worked out — or if he blamed his No. 2 if things with Iran ultimately didn’t work out.

“I like that idea, of course,” Trump said. “That way, if it works, I’ll take credit for it. If it doesn’t work, I blame JD. You better be careful, JD.”

Leaders sing the same song about Iran and Ukraine

G7 leaders have shown remarkable unity on Iran and Ukraine, two issues on which Trump and his counterparts are sharply divided.

France’s Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Britain’s Keir Starmer have all criticized Trump’s decision to launch war in Iran without consulting his allies. But in a joint statement on the final day of the summit, the leaders welcomed the agreement in principle. They even noted that “President Trump’s strong leadership” made this possible.

Meanwhile, the Europeans managed to convince Trump to join G7 leaders in offering “unwavering support for Ukraine.”

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Trump has long asserted that Ukraine has “no cards” in its war against Russia and must make concessions to Moscow to achieve an endgame.

But the US president joined fellow leaders in calling on countries “to increase the delivery of air defense capabilities, additional systems and interceptors, and long-range capabilities” to Ukraine and praised Kyiv “for its resilience and progress on the battlefield in recent months.”

Mixed messages on China

G7 leaders discussed how China is flooding export markets with subsidized goods and destroying jobs in their countries.

Macron said Beijing was a major source of global economic imbalances, citing what he described as China’s industrial overcapacity, excessive subsidies and low domestic consumption.

After the summit, the leaders issued a statement saying they were united. “We seek to deter and are prepared to take action, if necessary, in a coordinated manner, against economic coercion,” the statement said.

But Trump refuted that message when he devoted part of his closing speech to thanking China and Russia — often allies of Iran — for remaining “neutral” in the conflict.

Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin “could have made our job a lot more difficult” if they had gotten involved. He specifically thanked Xi for not giving or selling weapons to Iran. “I just want to thank them,” Trump said, “because they made it so much better.”

Talking ain’t cheap

The “let’s talk” informality that has characterized these gatherings since the first in 1975 has proven successful – despite the carbon costs of flying leaders and their entourages, the security to protect them, the protests they attract, and the inconvenience to the local population.

Spending nearly three full days with Trump, America’s allies had ample opportunity to make themselves heard. And the value of this was perhaps most evident in their discussions of the Russian war in Ukraine.

European leaders, who are now the main providers of military and financial aid to Ukraine, felt they had made progress in demonstrating to Trump that Ukraine held certain cards and that Russia was not assured of victory – contrary to what Trump vehemently told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year. Macron invited Zelensky to attend the summit.

Macron ensures that Trump stays throughout the summit

It seems all it took was an invitation to dinner at the sumptuous Palace of Versailles, southwest of Paris, after the summit.

After all, Trump said it himself: he is a fan of beautiful things and his only plan was to return to Washington after the conference anyway.

He left last year’s G7 summit in Canada before it was over, but Macron wanted to stop Trump from doing the same to him. Their relationship has had many ups and downs.

Macron described the dinner as a “convivial” occasion intended to celebrate the friendship between France and the United States.

French officials noted that Versailles was where King Louis XVI pledged military support to Benjamin Franklin and the American revolutionaries in 1778.

Macron hosted King Charles III and Queen Camilla there in 2023 for the palace’s 400th anniversary, including a dinner in the Hall of Mirrors, one of the features of the palace’s 2,300 rooms.

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Superville reported from Geneva. Associated Press writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report.

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