Top diplomats from G7 countries meet in Canada as Trump threatens more tariffs on US allies
LA MALBAIE, Canada (AP) — Top diplomats from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies gathered in Canada on Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade and foreign policies have thrown the bloc’s once solid unity into disarray.
The meeting began just minutes after Trump threatened to impose 200% tariffs on European wine and other alcohol if the European Union doesn’t back down from retaliating against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs with a levy on American whiskey.
The escalating trade war adds to uncertainty over relations between the U.S. and its closest allies, which have already been strained by Trump’s position on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It also likely means U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hear a litany of complaints as he meets with the foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan over the next two days.
All of them have been angered by the new American president’s policies, and the ministers smiled stiffly in frigid temperatures as they posed for a group photo at a snowy resort in La Malbaie, Quebec, on the St. Lawrence River.
“Peace and stability is at the top of our agenda, and I look forward discussing how we continue to support Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal aggression,” Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in brief remarks at the start of the meetings. “Of course we want to foster long-term stability as well in the Middle East.”
Rubio met earlier with Joly, arriving in Quebec just hours after Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in — prompting responses from the European Union and Canada.
En route to Canada from Saudi Arabia, where he had won agreement from Ukraine for a 30-day ceasefire in the war pending Russia's approval, Rubio dismissed suggestions that he would face an uncomfortable reception from this counterparts.
But Joly, the host of the meeting, made clear that Canada, at least, would not back down. Trump has arguably been most antagonistic toward Canada with persistent talk of it becoming the 51st U.S. state, additional tariffs and repeated insults against its leadership.
Ahead of the talks, Joly said that "in every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to coordinate a response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans.” She noted that Trump “repeated his disrespectful 51st state rhetoric.”
Rubio downplayed Trump's those comments, saying the president was only expressing what he thought would be a good idea.
The G7 grouping "is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada,” Rubio said.
Facing allies as tariffs take holdOn tariffs, Rubio said G7 partners should understand that these are a “policy decision” by Trump to protect American competitiveness.
“I think it is quite possible that we could do these things and at the same time deal in a constructive way with our allies and friends and partners on all the other issues that we work together on,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday on a refueling stop in Ireland. “And that’s what I expect out of the G7 and Canada.”
Asked if he expected a difficult reception from his counterparts, Rubio brushed the question aside: “I don’t know, should I be? I mean, they’ve invited us to come. We intend to go. The alternative is to not go. I think that would actually make things worse, not better.”
Rubio notably skipped a meeting of G20 foreign ministers — a bigger but less powerful group that includes developing nations — last month in South Africa because of his concerns that the agenda, which included climate change and diversity, did not align with Trump administration policies.
The agenda for the G7 meeting includes discussions on China and the Indo-Pacific; Ukraine and Europe; stability in the Americas; the Middle East; maritime security; Africa; and China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.
Discussing peace in UkraineRubio and Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had been in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, earlier in the week securing a potentially huge win for the administration — a possible ceasefire to end the Russia-Ukraine war, an issue that galvanized the G7 since even before the conflict began. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived Thursday in Russia for talks with officials on the proposal.
Armed with Ukraine’s acceptance of the proposal for a 30-day ceasefire but still awaiting a Russian response, Rubio can expect cautiously optimistic responses from his fellow diplomats.
Yet, Trump’s apparent desire to draw Russian President Vladimir Putin back into the fold — including saying he would like to see Russia rejoin the group to restore it to the G8 — continues to alarm G7 members. They united behind Ukraine, with large amounts of military assistance and punishing economic sanctions against Moscow, after the invasion began in February 2022.
Russia was thrown out of the G8 after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Among international groupings, the G7 — whose members, with the exception of Japan, are all NATO allies — had been the toughest on Russia.
At the last G7 foreign ministers meeting before the 2022 invasion, members warned Russia in a joint statement in December 2021 of “massive consequences” should it attack Ukraine. Three months later, they coordinated to impose sweeping financial, travel and other sanctions on Moscow.
Since Trump's election, that appears to be changing, at least from the U.S. side.
Rubio said his goal was not to antagonize Russia as it considers the ceasefire proposal “by issuing statements that are abrasive in any way.” He noted that all of the sanctions against Russia remain in place but that new threats of action could be counterproductive to getting Putin on board with the U.S. peace plan.
That throws into question hopes that the G7 can unify around a common statement condemning Russia.
Britain, along with France, has been spearheading efforts to set up a “coalition of the willing” to help safeguard a future ceasefire in Ukraine, including with troops on the ground. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who has said the plan will only work with U.S. security guarantees to back it up — plans to host a virtual meeting of about two dozen countries Saturday to discuss progress.
Rubio and other Trump administration officials have so far refused to endorse European peacekeepers.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said G7 unity has been critical in ensuring that “Putin to this day hasn’t achieved his war aims in Ukraine.”
“The way to peace goes via strength and unity — a language that Putin understands,” she said in a statement before the meeting.
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Associated Press writers Rob Gillies in Toronto, Jill Lawless in London, and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.