Tag: G7

Biden, E.U. end 17-year Airbus-Boeing trade dispute, seek to calm relations after Trump

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BRUSSELS — President Biden and European Union leaders reached a deal Tuesday to put to rest a 17-year-old trade dispute about subsidies for aircraft manufacturers, officials said, a significant step in calming trade relations after the fury of the Trump years.

A five-year truce, which was announced at a meeting Tuesday in Brussels between Biden and the top leaders of E.U. institutions, was the latest effort in a transatlantic reconciliation tour that the new president started last week at the Group of Seven summit in Britain.

At each stop, including at NATO on Monday, Biden has tried to mend ties that were damaged under President Donald Trump, who often drew close to traditional American adversaries and targeted longtime allies with vitriol. Continue reading.

Germany rejects Trump’s proposal to let Russia back into G7: foreign minister

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has rejected a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin back into the Group of Seven (G7) most advanced economies, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

Trump raised the prospect last month of expanding the G7 to again include Russia, which had been expelled in 2014 following Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

But Maas told Rheinische Post that he did not see any chance for allowing Russia back into the G7 as long as there was no meaningful progress in solving the conflict in Crimea as well as in eastern Ukraine. Continue reading.

Trump and Putin Discuss Russia’s Attendance at G7, but Allies Are Wary

New York Times logoThe British and Canadian governments oppose admitting Russia into the bloc, as President Trump continues a renewed courtship of Russia’s leader.

President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke by telephone on Monday, two days after Mr. Trump said he would invite Mr. Putin to attend a Group of 7 summit in the United States in September, the latest instance of a renewed round of personal diplomacy between the two leaders this year.

Hours after the Kremlin first described the call on its website, the White House released a statement saying that the men had discussed “the latest efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and reopen global economies” and “progress toward convening the G7.” A largely similar Kremlin readout said Mr. Trump had initiated the call, and a senior White House official said Mr. Trump had extended a personal invitation to Mr. Putin to attend the gathering, which the president will host.

Russia was expelled in 2014 from what was known as the Group of 8 after Mr. Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Mr. Trump has supported re-entry but even as he reached out to Mr. Putin, key U.S. allies reiterated that Russia was an outlaw nation that should be denied readmittance into the group of industrialized nations, whose members include the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Japan. Continue reading.