Kananaskis G7… summit interruptus: Stephen Nagy in the Western Standard

At this week’s G7 Summit in Kananaskis, Alta., there were high expectations for Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney, the other attending global leaders, and for the world. Unfortunately, great expectations gave way to disappointing new geopolitical realities, war between Israel and Iran, and an American leader who understands the currency of international relations in the 21^st century is not multilateralism but comprehensive national power.

Rather than concrete takeaways — like a joint communiqué on the Ukraine-Russian war or combating economic coercion, as in previous summits — six joint statements were released by the G7 leaders in U.S. President Donald Trump’s absence.

These included:

1) Securing high-standard critical mineral supply chains that power future economies;

2) Driving secure, responsible and trustworthy AI adoption across public and private sectors, now and into the future, and closing digital divides;

3) Boosting cooperation to unlock quantum technology’s full potential to grow economies, solve global challenges, and keep communities secure;

4) Mounting a multilateral effort to better prevent, fight, and recover from rising wildfires;

5) Protecting the individual rights and the fundamental principle of state sovereignty by continuing to combat foreign interference, and

6) Countering migrant smuggling by dismantling transnational organized crime groups.

Taken together, these statements tell a story of the shifting role for multilateralism in the 21^st century.

First, they reflect an effort to align with key elements of the Trump administration’s MAGA agenda, like ending illegal migration and bolstering economic security through a focus on securing high-standard critical mineral supply chains.

The former was “bread and circuses” to appease Trump’s anti-immigration supporters.

The latter was meant to scale up critical mineral production among trusted partners to remove China’s monopoly in terms of possession and processing, both of which have provided it an upper hand in U.S.-China trade negotiations.

Distinct from merely appeasing Trump, the other statements reflect a collective understanding of the importance of safe, transparent, and well-regulated technology, such as AI in societies and an implicit criticism against authoritarian states that continue to try to destabilize democracies through their cyber disinformation operations.

Second, Trump’s early departure to ostensibly deal with the emerging Israel-Iran conflict reflects America’s deprioritization of exclusive multilateralism, like the kind practiced at the G7. For Trump, it wasn’t the group photo opportunity or roundtable discussion that led him to attend the summit, but the opportunity to have bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of Japan, India, Australia, the U.K. and Canada.

The order is important here. It reflects U.S. priority partnerships in realizing the MAGA agenda at home, and peace and security abroad.

Painfully for Canadians, Canada is not at the top of this partners list. This reality is not reflective of Carney’s tenure to date, but of the past ten years under former prime minister Justin Trudeau and the damage it did to Canadian foreign and domestic policy performance and credibility.

The takeaway for Canada is that the U.S. under Trump no longer sees exclusive or inclusive multilateralism as useful in addressing America’s global or regional challenges. In trade talks, the power asymmetry that manifests in bilateral negotiations gives the U.S. the upper hand, allowing Trump’s America to secure the most favorable deal for the U.S.

The logic is simple: multilateral settings like the G7 or other forums dilute U.S. power and its ability to use its overwhelming economic and security leverage to extract concessions from counterparts.

This diagnosis suggests that the G7 must face the new realities of U.S. participation in exclusive and inclusive multilateralism.

In concrete terms, the G7 will need to either align its interests more closely with a U.S. that now focuses on a transactional diplomacy based deeply in national interests rather than shared values. This means eschewing virtue signalling about the environment and identity politics for collective policy alignment that brings concrete achievements to the U.S. and other G7 members.

Third, the G7’s impotence to take meaningful collective action regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, to come to a joint statement on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or to address the importance of peace and stability for Taiwan suggests the group is not able to address crises or geopolitical conundrums in meaningful and realistic ways.

For political leaders in Canada and other G7 countries, it is hyper-optimistic to believe that the G7 will return to its pre-Trump functionality. Multilateralism is on life support at best, especially when the U.S. is part of the grouping.

Canada needs to be clear-eyed that the currency of international relations in the 21^st century is not multilateralism, like the kind traditionally practiced at the G7, but comprehensive national power. The U.S., China, and Russia are all conducting a Machiavellian, might-is-right approach to foreign affairs, instinctively understanding that power is their comparative advantage.

Being America’s closest economic and political partner, Canada needs to embrace this new reality and work more closely with its neighbour. This means demonstrating our value to the U.S., not our liabilities. At the same time, Canada should continue to contribute to the reform of weakening multilateral institutions like the G7, such that they don’t turn into talk shops but forums that can effectively, quickly, and strategically confront collective challenges and opportunities.