The annual Group of 7 summit for decades has been an occasion for the heads of state of Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and the United States to meet as friends and try to hash out a collective approach to the vexing problems of the day.
For the most part, the G7 has proved a useful mechanism for advancing the interests of the free world. Over the past 50 years, summits have led to promotion of free trade, cooperation in combating infectious diseases and a concerted, effective counter to authoritarianism around the world.
As the one superpower in the group, the U.S. has naturally been a leader on most of those fronts. But as President Donald Trump traveled to France Monday for the second G7 meeting of his second term, the U.S. under Trump is on the outs with the group of nations it once led.
His meeting last year was stormy, with Trump engaged at the time in protectionist battles with countries that used to be our closest friends, and Trump spent his briefer-than-scheduled time at the meeting lobbying unsuccessfully for the return of Russia to the G7.
This year he arrives having negotiated a deal with Iran, the full details of which have yet to be released, although the administration says it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil-tanker traffic. Trump is seeking help from some of the G7 members in clearing the strait of mines, and French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders surely will probe to see just how substantive — or not — the Trump administration’s understanding with Iran is as they consider his request.
But one reality is abundantly clear after nearly 18 months of Trump 2.0. Rather than friends and allies, many of the G7 members at this point can better be described as frenemies of the U.S. It is a regrettable change, both for Europe and the U.S.
There surely were aspects of Europe’s previous overdependence on the U.S. for spending on the continent’s defense that were in need of adjustment, but the relationship reset between the U.S. and Europe is more fundamental. Some Europeans now worry whether or not the Trump administration would come to their defense in the event of an attack. That guarantee should be iron-clad.
Meanwhile, the U.S. finds itself with relationships that once were bound by shared, allied history now far more transactional in nature, which seems to be the only kind of relationship Trump knows how to conduct.
When Iran effectively closed the economically crucial Strait of Hormuz, Trump was angered that European countries wouldn’t agree to help militarily in reopening the channel.
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That’s what happens, though, when your treatment of friends and allies turns them into frenemies. Even a country as powerful as the U.S. will find it needs true friends on the global stage at some time or another. Instead, what the Trump administration has discovered is that formerly tried-and-true allies now gauge U.S. requests for help strictly through the prism of their own interests. In many cases, the two will coincide. But not always.
Too often, Trump treats geopolitics as if he’s in a real estate deal. But that transactional approach not only is anathema to most Europeans, it does not serve the long-term interests of the U.S. — or, indeed, the world. We hardly expect this particular leopard to change its spots. But we can at least hope Trump dials back the overt hostility this time around.
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