June 07, 2018

The G7 summit will be contentious — for all the wrong reasons

By: Richard Fontaine

Leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized democracies will gather this week in Quebec for their annual meeting on the world's economy. Following the Trump administration's recent imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Europe, Japan and Canada, however, the summit is shaping up as 6 versus 1.

Why it matters: What would normally be an opportunity to forge unity on key challenges — with China's discriminatory trade practices foremost among them — will be anything but.

The summit comes as wealthy democracies worry about an accelerating slide toward all-out trade war. Canada and Mexico have already responded to the tariffs with their own measures against U.S. imports, and the European Union is readying to retaliate. Trump has signaled that he may next impose tariffs on foreign automobiles, to which America's economic partners are likely to respond. Endless tit-for-tat moves toward protectionism would be bad for everyone.


Read the Full Article at Axios

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