Where the G7 came from — and where it might go in the era of Trump

Historian Samuel Beroud has a pet peeve whenever anyone asks him about the origins of the annual Group of Seven (G7) summit. 

As the well-worn narrative goes, the G7 (originally the G6 before Canada joined In 1976) was set up as a forum among the world’s leading industrialized nations following the economic shocks of the early 1970s, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system and the oil price crisis.

The first summit was hosted by French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1975. The two leaders met with the heads of the U.K., Italy, Japan and the U.S. for a fireside chat at the Château de Rambouillet, just outside of Paris.

It is said that the gathering was necessary to shepherd the world economy and prevent disputes from escalating into nasty trade wars — but more importantly to reassure the public and the markets that the leaders were in charge and managing things.

“I have a very critical interpretation of the G7, because if you look at things, basically the first G7 took place after the recovery of 1975 has already happened,” said Beroud, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center and PhD candidate at the University of Geneva. 

“So there is already like a trick from the politician to say, ‘Look, we are solving global economic problems,’ when they know already that the recovery has already started.”

There was, however, geopolitical value in meeting face-to-face and a clear message at the time, Beroud said.

“The Western world has gone through a period of tension, but now we are united again and we are ready to face challenges from the outside. So this is the main message of the first G7 summit.”

Good luck getting there this week.

Projecting a sense of calm reassurance as the global economy is upended by the Trump administration’s trade war — not to mention hot wars in both the Middle East and Ukraine — would be nice.

Hopefully the leaders gathering in the majestic wilderness of Kananaskis, Alta., this week get the memo. 

Whether that reassurance involves unity on key economic and security questions is in question — even doubtful. Perhaps more so than at any other point in the five-decade history of these summits. 

As host, the Canadian government seems to have given up on a summit-ending communiqué and appears poised for less comprehensive “action-oriented” statements. 

We all know why. 

Aside from a destructive trade war and the routine disparaging of allies, there is little common ground between U.S. President Donald Trump and the other leaders on key economic, environmental and security issues — notably Ukraine.

Creon Butler, who helped organize Britain’s G7 priorities for almost a decade, wrote last fall that with Trump in the picture, the G7 is so hamstrung — the areas of co-operation and agreement so few — that allies would be better off meeting in smaller groups, without the United States.

“I think the problem now, frankly, is for all of that to work, you need a level of trust among the members, which despite … quite a few bumpy periods along the way, has always been there,” said Butler, who served under former prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. 

“I question now whether that level of trust is there with the U.S. to make it function in the way it has in the past.”

Questions of relevancy

Throughout its existence, there have been other times when the G7 was a loggerheads over either a range of or specific policies, Butler said. But it’s never been this stark. 

In light of its declining collective economic clout, the G7 has also faced existential questions. The arrival of the G20 in the early 2000s and the BRICS alliance raised the spectre of relevance in the face of a changing world. 

“There was actually a period where people wondered within the G7, do we still need the G7?” said Butler.

One of those moments was in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis and before the cascading eurozone debt crisis.

“It was the eurozone crisis, which was very fundamentally a G7 crisis — or Europe and other advanced countries — which clearly gave the G7 a continuing purpose,” he said.

More recently, it found purpose in the need to respond to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. 

After ambling along in the face of the first argumentative Trump administration, the G7 came back in full force as the co-ordinating group for sanctions on Russia following its 2022 full-scale invasion — a time when everyone was on-board.

Conversation doesn’t always need consensus

Given the deluge of events and the speed with which Trump has moved to upend the global order, those days seem very long ago. So what’s the purpose now?

“The G7s are [to] talk shop at the end of the day, right?” said Phil Luck, a former deputy chief economist at the U.S. State Department, now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

“We get together and talk about things. So the question is what use is that? … I think there’s always use in talking. I think it tends to not be that costly. And I think, if nothing else, talking can try to iron out disagreements. And that can be helpful.”

Sen. Peter Boehm, Canada’s former G7 deputy minister, agreed there is value in talking — especially now — even if there’s no consensus.

After watching leaders behind closed doors at several summits, he said there’s a lot to be learned from how they tackled their differences in the past.

“Inside the room, it’s not like everyone is close to fisticuffs or anything like that. It’s a very cordial atmosphere,” said Boehm, who disagreed with the notion that another forum — without the U.S. — is needed.

“You can agree to disagree.”

When you look at recent history, everyone focuses on Trump’s 2018 Air Force One Twitter outburst as torpedoing the consensus at the Charlevoix summit. But Boehm said history has shown there are ways to manage the discussion with the mercurial president — and he believes Prime Minister Mark Carney can keep Trump tuned in.  

“What I would say is bring him … into the meeting, [bring] President Trump into the conversation — and as often as you can, so that he does not lose interest,” said Boehm. “And defer to him, because he is the president of the United States.”

But history and ego-management can only take you so far, and the bigger question becomes how other leaders respond to both Trump’s policies and his potential tantrums. 

“I think the big challenge for Prime Minister Carney is to ensure that some sort of solidarity is demonstrated,” said Boehm. “There won’t be consensus on everything. There never has been. 

“But at least to have a modicum of a consensual view, where the G7 can present itself to the world and say, ‘We had a good discussion on topics X, Y and Z, and this is what we propose to undertake.'” 

As the world’s largest economy, nations over the years have grown accustomed to the United States — the so-called G1 — setting the agenda and leading the discussion. 

As the Trump administration jettisons the country’s mantle of global leadership, Luck said it will be up to other G7 members to try to find consensus with the U.S. where they can — and lead on consequential issues that no longer interest America. 

“I think the world will be waiting for a while for us to show the type of moral leadership that I think people are used to. Or that we like to think that people are used to,” he said.