Trump At G7: Misses Macron Meeting, Suggests Bringing Russia Back
(CNN) -- President Donald Trump sounded defiant departing for the Group of 7 summit on Friday, vowing to confront the leaders of America's closest allies over trade. But he arrived so late to the conference in remote Canada that he missed his first scheduled sit-down. And he's planning to cut short his visit by several hours a day later.
The series of events opened what promises to be a day-and-a-half of open animosity between Trump and infuriated western leaders, who are intent on airing their grievances before the President departs for his talks in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The stark reality of a US president skipping out on fuming western allies to have what he's described as a "friendly negotiation" with the North Korean despot has not been lost on diplomats and leaders assembled in the Canadian woods.
And Trump has done little to ease their jitters.
He suggested just before touching down in Quebec that Russia should be allowed to rejoin the summit after five years in exile -- a break in the united front allies had hoped to put forward against Moscow's destabilization efforts in the US and Europe.
The remark seemed destined to only escalate the existing tensions between Trump and the six other leaders gathered at a riverside resort here. The annual G7 conference is usually a fairly news-free endeavor, with agreements on the global economy hammered out well before world leaders gather for two days of talks.
This year the normally staid affair has been imbued with uncertainty and bitterness. Few expect the assembled leaders will even agree on language for a joint "communique" that typically concludes the summit.
In the mid-afternoon, Trump emerged with fellow world leaders and smiled broadly for a "family photo." The underlying tensions weren't visible as the Saint Lawrence River glinted in the background. But the group retreated quickly behind closed doors for the start of their talks.
Before leaving the White House, Trump previewed a harsh tone for his foreign counterparts.
"We're going to deal with the unfair trade practices," Trump said. "If you look at what Canada, Mexico, the European Union, all of them have been doing to us for many, many decades, we have to change it. And they understand it's going to happen."
Trump was initially due to meet mid-morning with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, who he'd lambasted a night earlier on Twitter. But Trump emerged from the White House South Portico 30 minutes late on Friday morning, and spent another 20 minutes talking to reporters.
Tense phone calls
By the time he did arrive in Canada, met by a cordon of red-jacketed Mounties, he was well behind schedule, making the meeting impossible. Aides were working to reschedule it for later in the day.
The two men did confer briefly before the summit began. Macron tweeted a short video of himself and Trump speaking while seated on a sofa inside the golf club where the summit is being held.
In the video, the men appeared to be conversing cordially -- a distant cry from an online argument that broke into public view on Thursday.
Last week, Macron candidly criticized Trump's policies during a phone call over trade and immigration that turned sour, two sources told CNN. Trump held a similarly tense phone conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau around the same time.
The allies have also been trading barbs on Twitter. Trump declared Trudeau "indignant" on Twitter Thursday evening, decrying his trade views.
After Macron's suggestion that G7 nations would band together without the US, Trump responded by accusing France, as part of the European Union, of "charging the US massive tariffs and creat(ing) non-monetary barriers."
The enmity between Trump and Macron was stunning given the elaborate displays of friendship both men have lavished upon each other over the past year. Trump was Macron's guest at last July's Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, an honor reciprocated with a state visit at the White House this spring.
The relationship was sometimes characterized as a "bromance," though aides to both men have downplayed that, suggesting instead something of a rivalry between two alpha males new to the political scene. As other leaders in Europe found themselves distracted by domestic political strife, Macron took it upon himself to cultivate Trump as a partner, at least in the areas where they could agree.
They have found some common ground, namely on security issues and an allied campaign of airstrikes in Syria as punishment for the regime's chemical weapons use. But, in most areas they still disagree.
Neither leader has ever papered over their deep differences on trade, foreign affairs and climate change. But those rifts were always cast as disputes between friends, and unlikely to rupture the longstanding alliance.
A fractured set of alliances
Now, that assumption has been called into question. In Canada, Trump is confronting a fractured set of western alliances that he has shown little desire to repair. Instead, Trump has embraced the discord with his French, Canadian, German and British counterparts, lashing out on Twitter in the hours before departing on Air Force One for Quebec.
In European capitals and among delegations gathered here at a pristine golf resort, anxiety over the future of US leadership has become more palpable than perhaps any other point in Trump's presidency, with the acrimony spilling into view just as the largest industrial nations hope to put forward a united front.
Trump was unenthusiastic about traveling to Canada for the talks, according to aides, who said he questioned whether his presence was absolutely required. Even as late as Thursday afternoon, he quizzed staffers over whether it was too late to cancel his participation.
He was told that scrubbing his visit altogether would appear like he was shrinking from a fight he proudly began. But his stay in Canada was nonetheless cut short by several hours late Thursday evening when the White House said Trump would depart for Singapore on Saturday after a morning session on gender equality. That means he'll skip the section of the summit focused on climate change and the environment, sending an aide in his place.
If there was any hope the fissures might be repaired before Trump arrived, it was dashed on Friday morning when the President told reporters he was open to reinstating Russia's participation in the group, which was suspended after Moscow's incursion into Ukraine in 2013.
"Russia should be in this meeting," Trump said. "Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting? And I would recommend, and it's up to them, but Russia should be in the meeting. They should be a part of it."
The step of cutting Russia out of the G7 was viewed as a decisive step at the time, one meant to convey unity and isolate and penalize Vladimir Putin as he embarked upon a destabilizing set of actions meant to divide western nations.
But five years later, the West has never appeared more fractured. US intelligence agencies have determined Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the hopes of helping Trump. And Putin was recently re-elected to another term.
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