The next G7 meeting will take place between June 15th and June 17th as leaders from France, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the United States will gather in the French Alps to discuss a range of pressing global issues.
Emmanuel Macron, President of France and the current host of the G7, initially set the dates to start a day earlier on the 14th, but moved the summit back to accommodate President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday, a decision which portrays what has been set up to be the main theme of this summit: keeping Trump happy. As John Lipsky, chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, said, “Macron has gone out of his way to have an agenda that is designed to appeal to the sort of things President Trump wants.”
How successful Macron will be at this task will certainly at least in part rely on Trump’s success in negotiating an agreement to end the war with Iran. Trump announced on the 11th that the US and Iran had come to terms, and dispatched JD Vance to sign the agreement. The back-and-forth strikes between Iran and the US & Israel have made the ceasefire signed in April practically moot, but the White House claimed Donald Trump’s recent threats of escalation, which included further bombing of key Iranian infrastructure and the invasion of the oil production & transportation centers on Kharg Island, have brought the Iranians back to the negotiating table. Since the war started, Trump seemed to want his cake and eat it too, asking for major victories in nuclear production and trade freedom while also looking for a de-escalation in the conflict. At this stage, the likelihood that Trump gets everything he wants out of the war is incredibly low, especially since Iranian officials have already announced that nothing has yet been finalized.
The outcome of the negotiations might be more sensitive for Trump in the company of leaders, such as Kier Starmer, Giorgia Meloni, Friedrich Merz, and Emmanuel Macron, all of whom the US President has already criticized for resisting calls to aid the US & Israel’s efforts in Iran, despite all being reliant on American security guarantees. Four G7 leaders have also criticized Trump on this issue, blaming him for the ongoing energy crisis that has rocked the global economy, especially those allied to the United States.
The Europeans will also look to balance Trump’s focus on Iran with the ongoing war in Ukraine. Macron personally invited Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian President, as he attempts to get a larger European role in peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin. The Europeans will also be using Zelensky’s appearance to convince Trump that the current US positions and proposals are too kind to Moscow, at a time when support for Ukraine is falling down the list of importance within Trump’s administration.
The last major agenda set covered global trade, focusing on trade imbalances between the West and China, and sourcing minerals and materials outside of China. The issue is another personal favorite of the US President’s, but Paris has pushed the issue over the course of its presidency within the G7 as a major concern, following five G7 leaders holding meetings in Beijing over the course of 2026, with Macron telling Xi Jinping that China had to rebalance economic relations so they were more cooperative, or else France would be forced to adopt more protectionist policies.
European leaders, and the G7 as a whole, haven’t been big fans of Donald Trump, especially over the course of his second term, but experts warn that if they are not on the same page as the President, it will be impossible to achieve anything meaningful within the confines of the summit. Whether these leaders can put aside their differences and soothe powerful egos to create real collective policies will define how cooperative the members of the G7 will be going forward until the next meeting.
