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The Substantial Performance of the 2025 G7 Foreign Ministers at Niagara
John Kirton, G7 Research Group, November 12, 2025
G7 foreign ministers, at their meeting in the Niagara region of Ontario on November 11–12, 2025, produced a substantial performance. All the G7 ministers and their seven invited guests had candid discussions across a wide range of security, economic, ecological and social subjects, and agreed on 18 commitments to advance their work.Going into the meeting, Canadian foreign minister Anita Anand said her priorities included ending the war in Ukraine, enhancing security in the Arctic and Haiti, and helping US secretary of state Marco Rubio bring countries to support President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan through humanitarian assistance, electoral reform and mounting a Gaza reconstruction conference.
Rubio’s priorities were stopping the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza, maritime security, Haiti, Sudan, supply chain resilience and critical minerals.
There were some divisions among the members. Canada, the United Kingdom and France have recognized a Palestinian state before the conflict has been resolved, while the US will not. All G7 members took a stronger stance than Trump’s US against Russia and for Ukraine. On Venezuela, French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot said, “We have observed with concern the military operations in the Caribbean region, because they violate international law and because France has a presence in this region through its overseas territories, where more than a million of our compatriots reside” (Cheng 2025).
Still, all G7 members, including Japan, promised to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defence and Canada promised to reach 5% by 2025, as the US has long wished.
On November 11, at 8:52 p.m., the meeting started with an opening session, a working dinner on global peace and security, which lasted just over two hours (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2025).
Ministers candidly discussed key regional conflicts the central issues of global peace and security, notably Ukraine, the Middle East, Indo-Pacific stability, Haiti and Sudan. They promised to communicate and cooperate closely as the G7 in an increasingly threatening security context.
On the Middle East, they reiterated their strong support for Trump’s 20-point Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. They agreed on the importance of the constructive engagement of all parties, including through humanitarian assistance. Japan’s foreign minister Motegi Toshimitsu said Japan would “play an active and realistic role towards the realization of a two-state solution through advancing the Plan and engaging in the early recovery and reconstruction of Gaza … [and] engage in efforts such as dispatching personnel to support the provisional governance mechanism and providing assistance for Palestinian state-building” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2025).
Ministers “reaffirmed the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific based on the rule of law and reiterated their strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion, including in the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and across the Taiwan Strait” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2025).
On North Korea, the Japanese foreign minister “strongly condemned” its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, noting that they are funded through cryptocurrency thefts and foreign currency earnings from information technology workers. He emphasized the importance of the complete denuclearization of North Korea and asked for his colleagues’ “understanding and cooperation … for the immediate resolution of the abductions issue.”
On Ukraine, G7 ministers “confirmed the importance of an immediate ceasefire and of cooperating … to achieve a just and lasting peace” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2025). They would discuss this issue with Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha the following morning.
Ministers discussed a broad range of regional situations, including in Latin America and Africa, and the need for coordinated G7 responses.
On November 12, G7 ministers and their guests had a working lunch on energy security and critical minerals. Canada has 34 of the 60 critical minerals that the US wants, from countries other than China.
Ministers also had an outreach session with their guests to discuss maritime security.
Many of the ministers took the opportunity to have bilateral meetings among themselves. Canada and Brazil discussed the Canada-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement and Haiti. The US and India covered the recent shocking terrorist attacks in Delhi that killed eight people as well as trade, supply chains and West Asia; Rubio also met with his UK and Korean counterparts. Other meetings included France’s Barrot and his Brazilian and Indian colleagues as well as with Anand.
The Niagara meeting inspired G7 members to mobilize more sanctions to support their commitments. The UK prepared to ban Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from accessing UK maritime services such as insurance and shipping for exports to third countries. Anand announced on November 12 that Canada would sanction Russia’s energy revenues and financial enablers and degrade its conventional and hybrid military capabilities. It would do so by adding 13 individuals and 11 entities, including those involved in Russia’s drone program and cyber infrastructure, Russian LNG, and over 100 vessels in Russia’s shadow fleet. These aligned with the recent sanctions announced by the United States, European Union and United Kingdom.
The ministers also mobilized more money. The UK produced an additional GBP 13 million to help Ukraine repair its energy infrastructure, as winter began.
G7 ministers’ domestic political management was very strong, as measured by the attendance of the ministers of all eight G7 ministers and their seven guests. Guests included Saudi Arabia’s Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, whose leader had not accepted the invitation from Canadian prime minister Mark Carney to the G7’s Kananaskis Summit in June. Saudi Arabia is important for Middle East peace and energy security overall. Other guests were the foreign ministers from Brazil, India, Korea, Mexico and South Africa, in addition to Ukraine.
The ministers’ public deliberation was significant. They released one outcome document to which all members formally agreed. This Joint Statement of G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in the Niagara Region contained 1,340 words and addressed nine subjects in turn: Ukraine’s long-term prosperity, security and defence; peace and stability in the Middle East; regional security and prosperity across the Indo-Pacific; Haiti; Sudan; the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; migration; maritime security and prosperity; and economic resilience, energy security and critical minerals.
The ministers’ decision making was solid. They made 18 precise, future-oriented, politically binding commitments covering seven subjects. Russia and Ukraine led with six, the Middle East had one, the Indo-Pacific two, Sudan one, migration one, maritime security and prosperity four, and economic resilience, energy security and critical minerals three. These 18 commitments were slightly more than the 17 made at the G7 ministers’ meeting at Charlevoix in March. However, few of the Niagara commitments contained promises to take actions that were more than the G7 has done before.
Many of these commitments and conclusions covered trade, in the form of standards-based markets, sustainable supply chains, non-market economies, “predictable trade,” sanctions, and the international exchange of weapons and dual-use components. Yet the meeting did not address the ongoing US-Canada trade dispute.
However, missing was any attention to or agreements on other standard and currently key foreign policy issues: in Africa and Venezuela, or on nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
In all, the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting at Niagara was a valuable follow-on to their earlier meeting in Charlevoix and the culmination of Canada’s year as G7 host. It provided a firm foundation, while leaving much to do, for France when it assumes the G7 chair for 2026.
Cheng, Maria (2025). “French Foreign Minister Says US Military Operations in Caribbean Violate International Law,” Reuters, November 11. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/french-foreign-minister-says-us-military-operations-caribbean-violate-2025-11-11.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2025), “G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Niagara (Overview of the ‘Session 1: Global Peace and Security’), November 11. https://www.mofa.go.jp/fp/pc/pageite_000001_01368.html.
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