The G7 struggle to confront crisis and contain conflict

The 51st summit of the seven most significant economies of the world, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, called the Group of Seven or G7, being held in Alberta, Canada, has assumed crucial dimensions given the tumultuous nature of current times.

If the respective leaders had expected their discussions to centre around Russia's war against Ukraine and Donald Trump's tariff war against America's trading partners, a new critical element - Israel's attack on Iran - has thrown their expectations into disarray. If host Canada had hoped to keep discussions neutral, thereby keeping the mercurial Donald Trump happy with the outcome, it too will find it difficult to do so, given the difference in stances between the leaders as far as Israel's recent spell of freewheeling actions in the Middle East is concerned.

Mark Carney, the new Canadian Prime Minister, will well remember the last time his nation hosted a G7 gathering in 2018 when Trump had stormed out early and, on the plane home, withdrew his support for the summit communique!

Things bode to turn out as prickly as that time seeing that Israel's decision to attack Iran will force the G7 leaders to spend less time on other issues and instead discuss ways of managing a conflict that will endanger global security and economic risks if allowed to escalate, by dragging in other countries and raising oil prices.

It may be noted that while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have called for restraint and de-escalation, others such as Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba have condemned Israel's attack outright. On the other hand, Trump has praised Israel's strikes, no matter that these disrupted ongoing US-Iran nuclear agreement talks, a position likely to be shared by a right-wing leader like Italy's Giorgia Meloni.

In such a scenario, the G7 leaders speaking in a common voice seems remote, further emboldening Israel. The problem with this grouping is that Trump is not on the same page with most of them, yet he is the only leader who has some influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the same way, it is difficult to envisage that this summit will be able to make any headway in discussions on climate change and global warming, since Trump is a known climate change sceptic! The biggest challenge would be, of course, to have some sort of accord on the tariff war Trump had initiated, considering the vast differences in positions among the seven nations.

Aware of the discord, the Canadians have decided beforehand not to have an official joint communique for this summit! Other leaders also attending the summit as special invitees, from Mexico, India, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Brazil, are not expected to upset the G7 applecart by dwelling on controversial issues.