LA MALBAIE: President Donald Trump drove the wedge splitting Washington from its Western allies even deeper on Friday with a shock call for Russia to be readmitted to the G7 club of nations.

As the leaders of the top industrialised democracies began meeting ahead of the G7 summit in Quebec, European leaders warned that Trump’s stance threatens the Western-led world order.

Already angered by Trump’s positions on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal, the other G7 allies now face a rift in the united western front against Russian aggression.

Before jumping on Air Force One to fly to Canada, which is hosting the summit in La Malbaie north of Quebec City, Trump called for a return to the body’s pre-2014 “G8” formula.

“They threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table,” the US leader said before boarding the presidential jet.

Moscow was expelled from the rich nations club, which sees itself as a guarantor of rules-based order and the global economy, over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

While Italy’s new premier Giuseppe Conte, the head of a populist coalition, sided with Trump, many other European leaders were horrified and warned against the idea.

EU’s Tusk warns of Trump threat to Western order

US President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow or renegotiate a series of international agreements constitutes a threat to the post Cold War order, EU president Donald Tusk warned on Friday.

“It is evident that the American president and the rest of the group continue to disagree on trade, climate change and the Iran nuclear deal,” Tusk told reporters ahead of the G7 summit in the Canadian town of La Malbaie, north of Quebec.

“What worries me most, however, is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the US.”

Earlier, before setting off for Quebec, Trump had exacerbated the already yawning gulf between his position and that of Washington’s G7 allies by calling for Russia to be re-admitted to the body, despite its occupation of Crimea.

European officials at the summit were shocked by the idea, or dismissive, and Tusk, while admitting that it was hard to be surprised by Trump’s pronouncements any more, said: “Let’s leave the G7 as it is.”

“Naturally we cannot force the US to change their mind,” said Tusk, who is a former prime minister of Poland and is now president of the European Council.

“At the same time we will not stop trying to convince our American friends and President Trump that undermining this order makes no sense at all, because it would only play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist.

Fundamental freedoms

Trump was the last G7 leader to arrive and on Saturday, he will probably be the first to leave, in a hurry to move on to his nuclear summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Singapore.

Trade battle lines were drawn even before he arrived in a series of dueling tweets and statements between Trump and his onetime friend French President Emmanuel Macron.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2018