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The international relations landscape this summer has been unusually busy — from the Trump tariffs to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Yet, underneath the global radar screen, one of the world’s longest-standing institutions, the G7, has celebrated the half-century of its founding. 

While the G7 has its critics, in many respects it has been a successful institution during the five decades since the club’s first summit in 1975. Alongside other bodies, including NATO, it has helped underpin in the post-1945 era one of the longest periods of sustained peace in the West’s modern history.

However, in the period since at least Donald Trump’s first US presidency from 2017 to 2021, tensions within the club have become more apparent, giving rise to the moniker of the “G6 plus 1.”

This was shown in 2018 when Canada hosted a hugely disruptive, tumultuous year of G7 diplomacy. In June that year at the club’s leadership summit, Trump refused to endorse the end of summit G7 communique, and called for Russia’s re-entry into the club of advanced industrial democracies when it was the G8.

Yet, other G7 members are opposed to this. So, there is little sign that Moscow, which joined the G8 summits from 1997 to 2014, will be invited back into the club while Russian President Vladimir Putin remains in office.

Burden sharing has long been a sore spot

Andrew Hammond

On a range of issues from trade to climate change, the US is dividing from key Western partners at a time of significant geopolitical and international economic turbulence. While these fissures within the G7 did not begin with Trump, they have been exacerbated by his presidencies. 

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been a series of intra-Western disagreements over issues ranging from the Middle East, including the Iraq War opposed in 2003 by France and Germany, through to the rise of China, with some European powers and the US disagreeing over the best way to engage the rising superpower.

There have been disputes over burden sharing, which has long been a sore spot, not least as the US has paid for about two-thirds of total NATO defense spending. US presidents other than Trump have previously urged all NATO allies to boost military expenditure.   

Yet, despite occasional discord, key Western nations generally continued to agree around a broad range of issues until the Trump presidency. These include international trade under the WTO rules-based system; backing for a Middle Eastern peace process between Israel and the Palestinians along the so-called Oslo Accords from 1993; plus strong support for the international rules-based system and the supranational organizations that make this work. 

Today, however, more of these key principles are being disrupted during Trump’s second term, which, if anything, is more disruptive than his first presidency. This includes trade tariffs, where the US is at odds with all of its G7 partners: Canada, the UK, Japan, France, Germany, and Italy. 

In the midst of this important change, the G7 has also evolved as an organization. Its original mandate in the 1970s was to monitor developments in the world economy and assess macroeconomic policies. 

Trump’s presidencies have widened divisions

Andrew Hammond

However, it has become a key security lynchpin over time. At the recent G7 meeting, for instance, geopolitical topics included Ukraine’s long-term prosperity and security; regional peace and stability in the Middle East; cooperation to increase security and resilience across the Asia-Pacific region; building stability and resilience in Haiti and Venezuela; supporting enduring peace in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and strengthening sanctions and countering hybrid warfare and sabotage.

To be sure, economic issues were also on the agenda, but these often are shaped nowadays by security issues and are geoeconomic in nature. This included building energy security and accelerating the digital transition, including fortifying critical mineral supply chains.

This agenda has come to higher prominence since Moscow’s military invasion of Ukraine in 2022 which exposed the huge reliance of Europe, in particular, on Russian energy. Since then, there has been an intensified emphasis by advanced industrialized economies to diversify dependence for raw materials driving a recent series of major trade deals, including the EU-Mercosur agreement.  

Reflecting this global focus, a wider range of world leaders have been invited to summits in recent years. Other attendees at this year’s G7 forum included Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The G7’s involvement in this multitude of geopolitical dialogues is not without controversy given its original macroeconomic mandate. For instance, Beijing strongly objects to G7 discussion of security issues in Asia, let alone internal issues in China.

It is sometimes asserted, especially by non-Western countries, that the G7 lacks the legitimacy of the UN to engage in these international security issues, and/or is a historical artefact given the rise of new powers, including China. However, it is not the case that the international security role of the G7 is new.

An early example of the lynchpin function the body has played here was in the 1970s and 1980s when it helped coordinate Western strategy toward the Soviet Union. Moreover, following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the then G8, including Russia, assumed a key role in the US-led “campaign against terrorism.”

Taken together, the G7 can claim some big successes on its 50th birthday, despite the splits within the club. While some of these pre-date Trump, his presidencies have widened these divisions into what have become the largest strains in the G7’s long history.

• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.