Word came Trump was unexpectedly going to hold his own closing press conference before leaving. So there was a scramble to get the leaders together again to haggle over those issues.
It was the last chance to forge compromises.
Photos of the group of G7 leaders and their top officials, including one posted by Merkel’s office that went viral, show an intense debate that was going on over the final communiqué’s language on trade and oceans, with Trump seated in the middle.
No one expected Trump would sign on the climate change piece, but they’d hoped the U.S. would agree to take joint action to tackle plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
In the end, it didn’t.
Trump held a news conference in which he promptly appeared to reject even the ideas on trade embodied in the communiqué he had agreed to, threatening to cut trade ties with any country who didn’t agree to a “zero tariffs” approach, telling reporters “the gig is up.”
“We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.”
Trump left, skipping the climate change and oceans sessions, but Trudeau took the stage Saturday evening to proclaim all G7 leaders had reached a joint statement, calling the summit a success and outlining his own talks with Trump.
It drew Trump’s wrath. Referencing Trudeau’s account of pushing back at the U.S., he tweeted Trudeau made “false statements.” He scorned Trudeau as appearing “meek and mild” in their meetings, but was “dishonest and very weak.”
