President Donald Trump will attend a summit of the group of seven leaders in Canada next month, the White House said Thursday, despite the tensions about his calls to the neighboring nation to become the state 51 of the United States.
“President Trump will travel to the Summit of G7 leaders in Canada from June 15 to 17,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, journalists in a daily informative session.
The relations between Washington and Ottawa have been tensioned by repeated Trump statements that urge Canada to join the United States and their radical tariffs against the country.
But the ties improved after the newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Trump at the White House earlier this month after his victory in the general elections of Canada in April.
Carney told Trump in a sometimes tense match of the Oval office that Canada “was never on sale,” but both leaders praised the conversations after progressing.
A day before, the financial leaders of the G7 democracies sought to minimize disputes over Trump's tariffs and find a common land to maintain the viable forum as they met in the Canadian rock mountains.
G7 finance ministers gave a positive turn to discussions at Banff, Alberta, to try to reach an agreement on a joint statement that largely covers non -tariff problems. Discussions included support for Ukraine, the threat of non -commercial economic policies in countries, including China, and the combination of financial crimes and drug trafficking.
“I had a very productive day,” said the United States Treasury Secretary Scott Besent, journalists when asked about their bilateral meetings when he left the place for a dinner dinner with other G7 ministers and governors of the Central Bank.
Financial leaders struggled to avoid a repetition of a fractured Finance meeting of the G7 organized by Canada in 2018, when Trump's first -period steel and aluminum rates made a joint statement impossible.
That meeting, described as the “G6 more one”, ended with Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy expressing “unanimous concern and disappointment” about Trump's tariffs.
Trump tariffs are much more extensive this time, but G7 sources said there was an effort to find a commitment to Besent.
“There has been a marked improvement in the mood,” said a spokesman for French finance minister Eric Lombard, after Lombard's bilateral meeting with Besent. “We had a sincere and honest discussion among the allies.”
Previously, Lombard said he was willing to live without a joint statement provided that the G7 reached a better understanding of how to reduce commercial imbalances, the best growth policies and war in Ukraine.
“And making progress is what matters ultimately. It is not just a matter of agreeing a statement today,” Lombard said.
But the Italian Minister of Economy and Finance, Giancarlo Giorgetti, took a different tactic, saying in X that arriving at a statement was “a step that we considered crucial.”
