G7 Summit Day 1: Trump Arrives in French Alps Looking for Momentum After Sunday Deal
President Donald Trump arrived at the G7 Summit in the French Alps Monday looking for diplomatic momentum after announcing the US-Iran deal late Sunday. Sir Keir Starmer met G7 leaders for the first session. The dominant agenda topics are the Iran framework follow-up, Ukraine, NATO spending and AI. Trump faces alienated European allies after months of tariff and Iran-war disputes. The Boston Globe Monday-evening piece on Trump’s G7 track record of insults captures the structural diplomatic friction. The Trump-Netanyahu rift over the Sunday Beirut strikes remains a structural backdrop.
The G7 Summit is the principal multilateral macro-political event of the second quarter; the Sunday-evening framework signing makes the agenda materially more about energy-market normalisation and Russia-Ukraine sanctions than crisis-management. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron are the principal continental interlocutors; Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attends her first G7. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attends as an invited guest. The G7 leaders’ communique on Russia-Ukraine is expected to address Patriot replenishment, sanctions on Russia’s shadow oil fleet, and the post-framework regional re-architecture. Starmer’s bilateral with Trump is the principal UK diplomatic test.