Summit Success

Trump's departure gave Zelenskyy a bigger stage

(Ukrainian president Zelenskyy with G7 leaders at Kananaskis on June 17th)

When Trump left the G7 on June 16th – earlier than expected, ostensibly to focus on Israel’s military operations against Iran – the summit became a success.

His performance would have been comical, had it not been so deeply repulsive. The US president openly regretted Russia was no longer part of the group. He wrongly blamed Moscow’s expulsion on Justin Trudeau, who wasn’t even in office at the time. In a stunning and deliberate reversal of cause and effect, Trump blamed the G7 for Russia’s nakedly predatory first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. When Trump let documents from a trade agreement he was signing slip to the ground, British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer gamely collected them. Trump floated an invitation for next time to communist China. He generally looking blank and dishevelled.