The G-7 Just Isn't What It Used to Be

Fifty years in, the group's political and economic ambitions are languishing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The G seven just isn't what it used to be
by Flavia Kraus Jackson read by Mara Finnerty. When leaders
of G seven countries gather in the forests of the
Canadian Rockies next week, it will have been less than
a month since Donald Trump confirmed his attendance. That the
U s President plans to show up at all is noteworthy.

(00:22):
As recently as May twenty seventh, Trump said Canada should
be the fifty first state. But it's also notable that
the so called leader of the free world waited until
the eleventh hour to r s v P. The G
seven ticket just isn't what it used to be. A
half century after the Creme de la Creme of the
world's economies first gathered in a fourteenth century chateau to

(00:46):
forge a collective response to an oil crisis, the Group
of Seven is on borrowed time. The share of the
world they represent is declining, now accounting for less than
thirty percent of g d P and ten percent of
the populace, and so too is their influence against Vladimir
Putin and Trump. The former's rejection of the chummy club

(01:08):
of insiders arguably put an end to the G seven's
political aspirations. The latter's America First mindset is now undermining
its economic ones. It was back in the late autumn
of nineteen seventy five, nestled in a forest where the
last king of France liked to hunt, that France, West, Germany, Italy, Japan,

(01:29):
the UK and the US enjoyed their first informal gathering.
The summits creator and host, French President Valerie Giscard de Stang,
wanted frank conversation over the finest Bordeaux wines about the
leading industrial nations shared economic woes, a collection of anxieties
he referred to as the crisis of capitalism That was

(01:52):
no under statement. The Breton Wood system had collapsed and
stagflation was rampant among the industrialized US economies. The world
was reeling from the shock of opex oil embargo, the
US was running a massive trade deficit, and the UK
was a year from asking for a humiliating IMF bailout.

(02:13):
In Italy, then Prime Minister Aldomorro would go on to
be kidnapped and assassinated in a decade long wave of
political violence. The outcome of that first summit was sixcinct
a fifteen point communic ha, vowing closer international cooperation and
constructive dialogue in a world of growing interdependence. But the

(02:35):
gathering was deemed a triumph, and they agreed to do
it again. Canada joined in nineteen seventy six, officially making
it the Group of Seven, a crew then representing seventy
percent of global GDP. Every year, their gatherings got progressively grander,
even as their challenges grew in complexity and magnitude. There

(02:56):
were instances when the G seven countries rose to the occasion.
Such was the case in the Reaganite mid eighties, when
in New York's Plaza Hotel, they agreed to intervene in
foreign exchange markets to stem an overly strong dollar that
was strangling the rest of the world and leading to
double digit inflation in the US. But internessing conflicts also brewed.

(03:20):
There was always an understanding that some leaders at the
G seven table were more equal than others. Canada's inclusion
was allowed over France's objection. Italy struggled to keep up
economically and was gleeful for a brief moment in nineteen
eighty seven known as ilsor Passo, when it overtook the
UK in nominal GDP. Italy also went down in the

(03:44):
G seven history books for a two thousand one summit
in Genoa where a policeman killed an anti globalization protester.
After that, the locations became more remote, the access that
much harder, and the image that much more impenetrable. The
implicit power of G seven countries and their collective ability

(04:05):
to move markets was tested in the wake of the
Cold War, but the group's waning relevance was accelerated by
three blows to the political establishment Putin, Brexit, and Trump.
Russia joined the G seven in nineteen ninety seven, making
it the G eight, and in two thousand one, George W.

(04:25):
Bush famously said he had looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes,
seen a soul, and trusted him. In two thousand and six,
Putin hosted the summit for the first and only time
in Saint Petersburg, a city designed three centuries earlier to
be Russia's window into Europe. How ephemeral that moment proved

(04:45):
to be. Over the next two years, Putin sent a
series of warning shots. Some were subtle, letting his black
labrador wander into a photo op with Angela Merkel, knowing
her fear of dogs, an anecdote Merkle relays in her memoir.
Others were overt, such as staging an incursion into Georgia

(05:06):
in two thousand eight during the final sprint of a
U S presidential campaign. Attempts to discipline the Russian leader
proved fruitless. Ahead of the G twenty in Brisbane in
twenty fourteen, Australia's then Prime Minister Tony Abbott threatened to
physically assault Putin. The Russian president simply left early, and

(05:27):
unlike NATO, which has a charter, the G seven's lack
of legal structure makes its decisions unenforceable. Instead, Russia's aggression
went unpunished, paving the way for Putin's annexation of Crimea
in twenty fourteen, which got Russia booted from the G eight,
and his invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two. Increasingly

(05:48):
Resentful of the West, the Russian president turned towards more
congenial partners in the Bricks and others shunned pariahs, such
as Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman. By twenty sixteen, the
G seven was facing the dual prospects of Brexit. Its
communicate called the possibility a serious risk to growth and Trump.

(06:10):
When the freshly inaugurated US president made his G seven
debut in Tarmina, Italy the following year, he got a
cool reception. At one point, TV cameras lingered on Emmanuel
Macrone and Justin Trudeau strolling together while Trump waited for
a golf cart. But Trump got vengeance in twenty eighteen,
ripping up the G seven communicat as soon as he

(06:33):
left Quebec and calling Trudeau weak. This is the summit
that produced the iconic photo of leaders leaning over to
seemingly chiede an unchastened Trump. He wasn't the only US
president they misread. At the G seven summit in Cornwall
in twenty twenty one, Joe Biden declared America was back

(06:54):
after the ravages of COVID, But at twenty twenty two
summit in the Bavarian Alps, a face dating Biden could
barely withstand the heat and began skipping parts of the program.
Last May in Italy, he was gently escorted around by
host Georgia Maloney that G seven will be remembered for
how many leaders were in denial about the president's fitness

(07:16):
for office. When wielded to their full potential, the G
seven and its multilateral ilk can shift global momentum. In
two thousand nine, the G twenty gathered in London for
a Save the World summit in the midst of the
financial crisis. In twenty fifteen, G seven leaders committed for
the first time to phasing out fossil fuels by twenty

(07:38):
one hundred, paving the way for the Paris Agreement. Even
when its full potential wasn't realized. That G seven was
seen as a place for consensus building for world leaders
to essentially speed date. Today, both of those functions appear
increasingly moot. Not only is a communicae no longer a guarantee.

(07:59):
Last November G twenty failed to produce even a family photo,
but in the Trump era, business is conducted elsewhere. World
leaders stand a better chance of courting the U S
President at mare Lago or on the golf course and
not mentioning a world of growing interdependence. Next week's backdrop

(08:19):
serves as a poignant bookend. The last time G seven
leaders gathered in Canada's Canisassus Valley was in the aftermath
of the September eleven attacks at a confab remembered for
the shared commitment to fighting terrorism and for the warm
embrace of Putin, who was beaming at Russia being cleared
to host a summit that optimism proved misguided. This year's

(08:43):
discussion is expected to touch on many crises of capitalism,
from trade to artificial intelligence, but perhaps what the Forum
really needs is a new Henry Kissinger. Back in nineteen
seventy four, Giskaoudistang and US President Gerald Ford met on
the Caribbean island of Martinique for a de facto g two,

(09:05):
chatting poolside about the need for better economic cooperation between
industrial democracies. It was there that Giscoudstang proposed the informal
gathering that would take shape the following year. Ford was game,
and so was Kissinger, then u S National security adviser
and a vocal proponent of diplomacy between world leaders. While

(09:28):
the pair of precedents sipped on cocktails, the diplomatic guru
par excellence was already plotting the next move.