G7 embraces ‘realpolitik’ to work around disruptive Trump

KANANASKIS, Alberta — The 2025 G7 summit ended without a unified statement on Ukraine and without the U.S. president in the room.

The failure to issue a joint declaration in support of Kyiv came despite the fact that just a few days before the confab in the Canadian Rockies, the delegations prepping for the summit were still hopeful of finding wording that was palatable to all G7 leaders, including Donald Trump, three diplomats told POLITICO.

But with time running out, it became clear to those doing the prep work that Trump would not agree to strong language against Russia, one Canadian official said.

The solution: don’t force a joint statement and instead let the host, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, issue one of his own.

That declaration — a “chair’s summary” — noted that “G7 Leaders expressed support for President Trump’s efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. They recognized that Ukraine has committed to an unconditional ceasefire, and they agreed that Russia must do the same. G7 Leaders are resolute in exploring all options to maximize pressure on Russia, including financial sanctions.”

At a press conference after the summit, Carney was asked whether the U.S. was the reason there was no official joint declaration on Ukraine.

“There was no problem at all,” Carney insisted. He claimed that all G7 leaders had agreed on wording on the war in Ukraine at a working dinner Monday night — before “certain tragic events” in the Middle East meant “it was more important, if you like, for us to have a G7 declaration on the situation in Iran.”

“The language that’s in my declaration” was agreed “directly with President Trump,” meaning there was “consensus around that language,” Carney stated. Reading from a copy of his chair’s summary, he said: “‘Leaders expressed support for his’ — so this is a G7 declaration. We all agree with that.”

Behind that bluster, though, was the harsh reality that the other leaders did not manage to convince Trump to agree on new joint measures against Russia.

“Given the U.S.’s unique position as a country in the midst of direct work to broker peace, it was clear that it would not have been feasible to find detailed language that all G7 partners could agree to in that context,” said a Canadian official, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “As such, no draft for a G7 joint statement on this was shared with the group of leaders or their negotiating framework.”

That leaves the remaining G6 to go it alone.

The U.K. and EU will move ahead with their campaign to lower the maximum price Russia can sell oil for, though it’s unclear how that would work without the full G7 buy-in. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer acknowledged this was easier said than done, noting: “Obviously, we’re still looking at how we’re going to make that work. But I strongly believe that we have to put those sanctions in place.”

It became clear to those doing the prep work that Donald Trump would not agree to strong language against Russia, one Canadian official said. | Ludovic Marin/EPA-EFE

And Carney on Tuesday announced billions in Canadian aid and loans for Ukraine, as well as major new sanctions on Russian products, ships, people and entities — “one of Canada’s most important” packages since the 2022 full-scale invasion, his government claimed.

Kid-gloves approach

While Trump was still in Kananaskis — before he skipped town a day early, ostensibly to deal with the crisis in the Middle East — his fellow G7 leaders were deferential, showering him with compliments and kitschy momentos of their friendship.

European Council President António Costa, who hails from Portugal, brought Trump a football jersey signed by Portuguese megastar Cristiano Ronaldo.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer didn’t pipe up when Trump mistakenly announced he’d finally closed a deal “with the European Union,” when he meant to say the U.K. When the papers of said deal dropped tragicomically to the ground after Trump opened a folder to show them off, Starmer immediately scooped them up, later joking that because of strict rules on who can get close to the president, “it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward.”

Carney, for his part, didn’t immediately contradict Trump when he claimed Russia was thrown out of the G8 because of the other leaders’ personal enmity and that the move offended its President Vladimir Putin.

But with Trump safely back home, Carney was braver at his closing press conference.

“It was personally offensive, to put it mildly, to the citizens of Ukraine and the inhabitants of Crimea when Russia invaded in 2014, which was the cause of their ejection from the G8,” Carney said, when asked about Trump’s G8 comments.

Hope isn’t lost

Sure, Trump’s G7 counterparts spent the majority of the summit walking on eggshells — “that’s realpolitik,” a German official said with a shrug, noting that Washington’s economic, military and nuclear might left them with little alternative. “But honestly, I haven’t seen the world ending here, as some reports suggested.”

“Everyone has their own, careful way of navigating” relations with Trump, a Japanese official noted — a strategy that allows the G7 to “live to fight another day.”

The American president may have ditched his allies as they sat down to meet with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kananaskis, but diplomats and members of other delegations insisted that while Trump may have a different approach to pressuring Moscow, this wasn’t necessarily a sign of disunity.

The U.S. is moving ahead with the idea of imposing punishing, 500 percent tariffs on Russian fossil-fuel buyers (though it’s worth noting this move is mostly designed to hit Beijing, rather than Moscow). The EU, meanwhile, is putting forward new laws to end its own dependency on Russian fuels, with an 18th package of sanctions expected to be agreed by EU leaders next week.

That’s got Paris and Berlin seeing the glass as half full.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters that “the summit was more successful” than he’d expected it would be.

On social media, Merz said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Washington would ultimately adopt stronger sanctions against Russia,” echoing an earlier statement by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Stefan Boscia contributed reporting.