EVIAN-LES-BAINS: US President Donald Trump joined global leaders on Monday at the G7 summit at a French lakeside resort, where he touted his preliminary deal to end the Iran war and said he would now seek to end the fighting in Ukraine and Lebanon.

Air Force One carrying Trump touched down at the airport in the Swiss city of Geneva, from where Trump was to transfer to the nearby French spa resort of Evian for the summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Flush from celebrating his 80th birthday by watching MMA cage fighting at the White House the previous night, he had proclaimed “let the oil flow” after announcing the framework Iran deal — a “memorandum of understanding” — had been clinched.

With the Iran deal secured, Trump said he would now turn his attention to trying to secure peace between Ukraine and Russia, while also seeking to bring closure to fighting in Lebanon. “We had a very good conversation yesterday with President Zelensky and President Putin, and I think maybe we can do something there. I really do. I think they’re both open to it,” he said.

In terms of potential Iranian fees on vessels using the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran on Monday insisted it would charge what it described as maritime service fees and said they should not be described as tolls.

Macron told TF1 television: “We defend international law and we will do everything in our power to ensure there is no toll.” “There shouldn’t be any tolls or anything that would enrich those in power” in Iran, he added.

‘Wary of US’

Global leaders are increasingly wary of the United States and, underscoring the tensions, Trump told the New York Post before leaving for France he would “have no choice” but to apply 100 per cent tariffs on French wine unless Paris eliminates its digital tax on US tech giants. Macron said France would not yield to Trump’s threats, adding, “tariffs don’t do anyone any good, especially tariffs between G7 countries.”

Then, in a social media post just before arriving at the summit, he turned to a subject that has been a regular source of tension with centrist European allies: immigration. “Sadly, if you import people from Third World Countries, you quickly become a Third World Country And there’s not a thing you can do about it,” he wrote.

Unusually, he is to extend his stay in France by dining with Macron at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris on Wednesday after the G7 finishes. Macron insisted that the meal would not be a “gala dinner” and acknowledged that Trump “needed to stay to the end” of this G7, unlike the previous edition in Canada where the American president walked out early.

During the summit, Trump is due to meet Middle Eastern leaders and attend a working session with Ukrainian Presi­dent Volody­myr Zelenskiy. The Tuesday meeting comes as Russian advances in Ukraine have slowed and Ukraine seeks more military funding from its allies, amid a barrage of attacks on Kyiv.

“This attack only strengthens our determination to do everything, with our allies and partners, to work towards a ceasefire that Russia stubbornly refuses, then to peace. We will work on it at the G7,” Macron said in a post on X. Zelenskiy said on Monday he had offered to meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at the G7 summit for talks to end their more than four-year-old war, but Putin was not ready to speak.

Parade of guests

A parade of world leaders will take place over the next three days, with France keen to expand the reach of the G7 beyond its membership of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was among the first guests to arrive and was to be joined by other non-G7 leaders including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Beyond politics, Sam Altman, head of artificial intelligence giant OpenAI, Anthropic chief Dario Amodei and Arthur Mensch of their European rival Mistral AI will attend a lunch on Wednesday on protecting minors in the digital sphere.

“The aim is to have new agreements, convergences between the G7 countries and its partners… to find common solutions, reduce tensions in the world and improve the state of our economies,” said Macron in an Instagram video.A vast security lockdown is in place for the summit, mobilising thousands of police and troops, an operation that extends to neighbouring Switzerland where protesters clashed with police on Sunday.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2026