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Another G7 summit blown apart by Donald Trump? Not on Emmanuel Macron’s watch.
Last year’s gathering of G7 leaders ended in chaos after Trump abruptly announced via Twitter that he would not support the just-agreed summit communiqué, apparently out of anger over comments made by the host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The French president is determined not to let his American counterpart steal the show this year in the beach town of Biarritz in southwest France, so he has come up with a cunning plan: There will be no communiqué.
But that doesn't mean Macron lacks ambition when it comes to the summit, which will run from Saturday to Monday.
As Macron expounded in a two-and-a-half-hour briefing for reporters on Wednesday night, he views the gathering as a key moment in his drive to save what he sees as an endangered multilateral liberal world order.
He will have his work cut out, and not just when it comes to trying to keep Trump and the other leaders even vaguely on the same page. The summit takes place at a time of multiple crises around the world.
Trump is engaged in feuds on multiple fronts — from a trade war with China to a bizarre battle with Denmark over the idea of buying Greenland. New U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is immersed in battles at home and abroad over Brexit. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will likely attend the summit after his government collapsed. Angela Merkel is facing a weakening German economy.
And that's without even getting into the deep international disagreements over issues as diverse as Iran and climate change.
In his marathon briefing, Macron declared that France has a "particular responsibility" in a pivotal reshaping of the global liberal order. Otherwise, "Europe is at risk of fading ... and losing its sovereignty," or worse — "becoming vassals."
Here are some of the key points in Macron's strategy for handling the G7.
Macron, who is having a working lunch with Johnson in Paris on Thursday, didn't mince his words on the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
"A hard Brexit ... will be the responsibility of the British government," he said.
"It was the British people who decided on Brexit, and the British government has the possibility up to the last second to revoke Article 50," Macron continued.
He said a renegotiation of the Brexit deal to remove the Irish border backstop provision, as suggested this week by Johnson, "is not an option ... because what Johnson suggests in the letter he sent ... is to choose between the integrity of the European market and the respect of the Good Friday Agreement. We wouldn’t choose between these two."
And as for the much-vaunted trade deal the U.K. would make with the U.S., Macron argued it will not compensate for the cost of Brexit, and would come at "the cost of a historic vassalization."
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