6 hours ago
Donald Trump is leaving the G7 summit in Canada a day early, skipping meetings with leaders including Anthony Albanese as he returns to Washington amid escalating war in the Middle East.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president would return to the US after an official dinner with the G7 leaders on Monday night, local time.
“President Trump had a great day at the G7, even signing a major trade deal with the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Keir Starmer,” she wrote on social media.
“Much was accomplished, but because of what’s going on in the Middle East, President Trump will be leaving tonight after dinner with heads of state.”
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The move came after he declined to join a joint statement from the G7 leaders calling for both sides in the conflict to de-escalate and warned people in Iran’s capital, Tehran, to evacuate.
Trump posted: “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
US media reports suggested he requested the Security Council be prepared in the White House situation room for his return.
He has called publicly for a diplomatic resolution to the bombings between Israel and Iran and has threatened US military action if the conflict continues to grow.
The US began sending refueling planes and an additional aircraft carrier to the region this week, moves aimed at boosting America’s defensive posture and supporting troops.
Trump’s departure is a blow for Albanese, who had expected to hold his first face-to-face talks with the president, including covering trade issues and the US review of the Aukus nuclear submarines agreement.
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Albanese is still expected to meet leaders including the UK’s Keir Starmer and the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, at the Kananaskis summit site, before returning to Australia on Tuesday night.
The United Nations general assembly in September could provide the next opportunity for a meeting between Albanese and Trump. Albanese is expected to go to New York and could add a visit to the White House to the trip if an invitation is forthcoming
By then the 30-day Pentagon Aukus review, which is being led by the under secretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, will be complete.
The Australian delegation had been buoyed by Trump’s comments about Aukus after his own meeting with Starmer earlier on Monday, when the president nodded in agreement that sharing of nuclear technology between the three countries represented an “important deal”.
“We’re very long-time partners and allies and friends, and we’ve become friends in a short period of time,” he said of the British PM.
News of his early departure came minutes after Albanese said he expected a positive meeting with Trump. The pair have previously spoken by phone, including about the Aukus deal.
“There are great advantages that we have,” he said. “The sum of one plus one plus one sometimes equals more than three.”
Trump had been due to hold bilateral talks with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky and Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum before leaving Canada.
He had criticised the move to remove Russia from the G8 group in 2014 and even suggested China should be invited to join the forum of the world’s biggest economies.
It is not the first time Trump has overshadowed a summit hosted in Canada. In 2018 he left a previous G7 meeting in disarray after boycotting a previously agreed leaders’ communique, deriding then prime minister Justin Trudeau as “dishonest and weak”.
