Trump Puts Off G7 Summit to September, Invites Russia, but not China

May 31, 2020 (EIRNS)—U.S. President Donald Trump has postponed the G7 Summit from the end of June until September and invited Russia and three other countries, TASS was among the first to report today. But a White House spokesperson said the summit would “discuss” China, which implicitly would not be invited.

TASS quoted the White House press pool, saying of Trump, “He made some news—which he permitted us to use on the record—about the G7. He is postponing it until September, and plans to invite Russia, South Korea, Australia and India. Trump told the press pool, ‘I don’t feel that as a G7 it properly represents what is going on in the world. It’s a very outdated group of countries.’ ” The President had turned the Quebec G7 summit on its head in June 2018, when he insisted Russia should be brought back into the G8, whereupon he left Quebec City a day early, refusing to sign the final communiqué, and headed to Singapore for the groundbreaking meeting with North Korea’s Chairman Kim Jong Un.

The press pool also quotes White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah on Trump’s return flight from Cape Canaveral, appearing to include Russia among “traditional allies” of America, while implying a possible anti-China aspect to the meeting: “The G7 summit is bringing together our traditional allies to talk about how to deal with the future of China.”

What has been called the Group of Seven countries Western was formed in 1975, with Russian making it the Group of Eight in 1998. As of 2018, the seven countries involved represented 58% of the global net wealth ($317 trillion) and more than 46% of the global gross domestic product based on nominal values: Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the U.S. Russia had kicked out of the G8 in 2014 at the instigation of the British Empire and Obama Administration after they overthrew the government in Ukraine and Russia reunited with Crimea.