Trump's First Economic Summit

By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host

President Trump’s journey into Europe, after his successful visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel, began with a visit to The Vatican.  Pope Francis has not been a friend to Trump, or his policies.  By the and of the Papal visit, however, Trump had the Pope at least listening, and talking cordially with him.

When in Saudi Arabia and Israel, Trump spoke mostly about the need to get a handle on Islamic terrorism, and the audiences listened to him, and agreed.  European leaders have not been as enamored by Trump’s rhetoric about terrorism as the Muslim and Jewish leaders were, and instead have focused on their leftwing belief that the greatest threat to mankind is instead man-made climate change.  Newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron spent a lunch in Brussels with Trump trying to convince the American to not refuse to at least look at the 196-nation Paris Agreement on climate change.

Trump did not budge.  He wasn’t there to discuss man-made climate change hoax hysteria.  He was there for the Group of Seven (G-7) conference to discuss economics, trade, and dealing with Russia, who is no longer a part of the club.  The G-7 Summit used to be the G-8, but Russia has since departed.  China was also not represented at this year’s conference.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis had even handed Trump his 181-page encyclical, “Laudato Si” (“Praise Be”), that largely blames man for climate change.

While campaigning, Trump pledged to pull out of the climate change deal, which Trump criticized from the beginning.  In fact, in a show that Trump remains out of the clouds of fantasy regarding the ridiculous notion of man-made climate change, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order changing most of President Barack Obama’s climate change policies, on Tuesday. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal,” Trump said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told supporters that she also plans to press the administration not to abandon the climate change accord.

Today’s first day of a two-day G-7 Summit will bring together the leaders of the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan in the resort town of Taormina, Italy.  Four of the seven leaders sitting at the G-7 table will be there for the first time, yet it seems to be first-timer President Donald Trump who is driving the agenda.  It is also Trump upon whom the brightest spotlight will be shining, largely due to his refusal to conform with the “progressive” norm of the globalist leaders, largely revealed by his refusal to endorse leftist-globalist positions on a variety of issues.

The Group of Seven (G7) is an informal bloc of industrialized countries, making up nearly 50 percent of the world economy, and representing more than 60 percent of net global wealth.

“The G7 takes no mandatory decisions, and the meeting is billed as an opportunity to allow leaders to exchange ideas in key issues. A leaders’ declaration at the end of summit is not binding in nature.”

A broader club, the Group of 20, or G20, was set up in 1999 and includes other major global players, including China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, South Africa and Turkey.

Representatives of the European Union have been additional participants to summits since 1981.  Russia was first invited as a guest observer in 1997 as a way to encourage then-President Boris Yeltsin’s capitalist reforms, and formally joined a year later. However, Russia was kicked out in 2014 over the annexation of Crimea.