Donald Trump began his time at the G7 summit in Canada by saying Russia should never have been kicked out of the forum – an awkward moment for host prime minister, Mark Carney.
The US president used a brief media appearance to revive his years-old complaint about Vladimir Putin’s removal in the wake of the 2014 invasion of Crimea.
Trump – unprompted, and with Carney at his side – complained that the G7 “used to be the G8” until “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in.”
“I would say that that was a mistake, because I think you wouldn’t have a war right now if you had Russia in, and you wouldn’t have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago. But it didn’t work out that way. But it used to be the G8 and now it’s, I guess, what’s that? Nine years ago, eight years ago, it switched over,” Trump said.
“They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn’t in politics. Then I was very loud about it. It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia, he’s no longer at the table. So it makes life more complicated, but you wouldn’t have had the war,” he said.
Trump did not mention that the decision to suspend Moscow’s membership was taken collectively by the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
Those nations withdrew from a planned 2014 summit, which had been due to be hosted by Russia in Sochi, and suspended Russian membership.
And while Trump partly blamed Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau for the move, Trudeau was not in power at the time.
In March 2014, Trudeau was just over a year into his time as the head of Canada’s Liberal Party. And at the time, Canada’s government was led by the Conservative Party of Canada and prime minister Stephen Harper. Trudeau would not become prime minister until November 2015.
Carney stood and watched as Trump continued speaking and taking questions from reporters, one of whom asked him if he believes Russia “should have a seat at the G7 today”.
Trump replied that he would not say that Moscow should be welcomed back into the fold because “too much water has gone over the dam” in the intervening years, but he again called the decision to remove Russia “a big mistake” and falsely blamed Trudeau for a second time.
“Obama didn’t want him. And the head of your country, the proud head of your country, didn’t want him. This was a big mistake,” he said.
He added that Putin had been “very insulted” by his ouster from the G8 and claimed that the Russian leader “doesn’t want to talk” to other G7 leaders except him as a result.
“Putin speaks to me. He doesn’t speak to anybody else. He doesn’t want to talk because he was very insulted when he got thrown out of the G8 as I would be, as you would be, as anybody would be. He’s very insulted,” Trump said.
For the third time, he falsely claimed that Russia had been “thrown out by Trudeau” — who at the time had no power to do so — and argued that the Liberal Party leader had “convinced one or two people, along with Obama” to go along with removing Russia from the G8 even though all seven remaining leaders had collectively decided to suspend Russia and not attend the Sochi summit.
“He [Putin] was thrown out, and he’s not a happy person about it. I can tell you that — he won’t speak to the people that throw him out, and I agree with him,” Trump added.
After the American president launched into another long answer to a question about his call for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to step up the targeting of largely nonwhite migrants in large American cities run by Democratic mayors, Carney — who became Canada’s prime minister in March following Trudeau’s resignation — intervened to call a halt to the session as a point of privilege as the chair of this year’s Group of Seven summit.
He asked reporters to exit the room and permit his team and the American team to “start the meeting to address some of these big issues.”
Trump’s complaint about Russia’s exclusion was the latest example of his tendency to carry a torch for Putin at the multilateral gathering.
The last time Trump attended the summit was in 2019, when he angered members of the group by arguing for Russia’w restoration. “I think it’s much more appropriate to have Russia in ... I could certainly see it being the G8 again,” he said.
In 2018, Trump aggressively attacked fellow G7 leaders and called for Russia’s readmission. As he departed the White House, he complained to reporters about Putin’s exclusion, asking: “Russia should be in this meeting. Why are we having a meeting without Russia being in the meeting?”
“You know, whether you like it or not — and it may not be politically correct — but we have a world to run. And in the G7, which used to be the G8, they threw Russia out. They should let Russia come back in. Because we should have Russia at the negotiating table,” he said.
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