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Analytical Studies > Analysis on the 2025 Kananaskis Summit
G7 Summits > 2025 Kananaskis Summit > Road to the 2025 Kananaskis Summit

A Strong Start to a Significant Performance at the 2025 G7 Kananaskis Summit

John Kirton, G7 Research Group
June 16, 2025

As the first day of the G7’s Kananaskis Summit drew to a close, it was on track to produce a significant performance by the end. Its progress was led by taming US president Donald Trump’s tariff wars against all his G7 partners, especially by backing off his onslaught on the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney as the G7 host and chair. Further advances came in the many bilateral meetings held with Trump and between different pairs of G7 leaders, throughout the day as well as the day before, including Canada announcing deals with France and the European Union, and Trump and Starmer signing a trade deal. In their formal session, all G7 leaders had a vigorous discussion on trafficking humans, drugs and arms. Also promising was the evidence that Trump was in a cooperative mood throughout and in all had a “great day,” according to his press secretary as the evening started.

To be sure, the US announced that Trump would be leaving that evening, to return to Washington to deal with the escalating crisis caused by Israel’s war with Iran (see Appendix A). But this was a credible reason. He had stayed for almost all of the opening G7-only day, and many other G7 summits have had leaders’ leave early and even arrive late before. As he left, the G7 leaders issued a joint statement on the recent developments between Israel and Iran (see “G7 Issues Joint Statement on the Israel-Iran War”).

The strength, substance and full G7 solidarity of day one’s progress would only be known at the full summit’s end on the afternoon of day two, as only then would the host release all at once, several remaining outcome documents on specific subjects and the concluding short, clear, crisp chair’s statement to summarize the main achievements and message of the 2025 Kananaskis Summit.

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Appendix A: G7/G8 Leaders’ Late Arrivals and Early Departures, 2000–2024 ↩

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