A string of leaders with faltering relationships with President Donald Trump walked into this week’s G7 summit in France with a delicate task ahead of them: charming the U.S. leader sufficiently to avoid a meltdown and sidestep potential dustups over the Iran war and defense spending.
Key to that is how they manage their personal interactions with Trump. What historically served as a gathering of the world’s leading democracies to discuss the global economy has turned into a game of navigating personal relationships among them.
And “during this administration, it's a little diplomacy, lots of vibes,” former State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. “The bar for success at a multilateral summit like this is quite low during this administration,” Price added, saying that the bar “really amounts to avoiding a massive blowup either in person or on social media.”
Last year’s gathering didn’t set a strong precedent. Trump abruptly walked out of the confab in Canada a day early, returning to Washington as tensions rose between the U.S., Israel and Iran.
There’s a distinct possibility that a repeat performance is in store. Even though the Trump administration has come to a preliminary agreement with Iran, there's no obvious path to a long-term agreement.
The Iran war has drawn strong criticism from G7 allies, getting multiple leaders in hot water with the U.S. president over their criticisms of the conflict.
But some, like French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting his international counterparts at the Alpine spa resort of Évian-les-Bains, have learned how to push back against Trump just enough without provoking him to take action against their countries.
Trump is fond of mocking Macron’s accent and needling him — including taking aim at the French president over alleged tensions in his marriage. But Macron knows how to dish it back, telling an audience in Davos earlier this year that he prefers “respect to bullies.”
Despite the public jabs, the two officials have still been speaking on the phone in recent weeks, according to French officials. Macron and Trump have a history of text exchanges — which the U.S. president made public earlier this year, in a rare glimpse into how leaders attempt to charm their American counterpart.
And the French president is making a big fuss over Trump’s upcoming visit, rolling out the red carpet for the American leader.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the president’s relationships with the various G7 leaders. But a senior administration official, granted anonymity to discuss summit plans, said that “these are very deep relationships” that Trump has cultivated over time.
Another senior official, similarly granted anonymity, said that Trump engages in “straightforward conversations” with allies in talks “behind closed doors.”
Macron isn’t the only one who has learned how to chat up Trump.
Canada’s chief trade negotiator with the U.S., Janice Charette, told an industry audience at the Canada Automotive Summit in Ontario on Tuesday that Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump “have a very good relationship” and stay in frequent contact.
“There’s a kind of constant back and forth. Who knew prime ministers and presidents text each other?” Charette said.
That’s despite Carney’s lightly veiled jab at Washington during a speech earlier this year at Davos, where he issued a rallying cry to “middle powers” to seize the disruption to the world order caused by “great powers” — widely seen to reference the U.S.
The Trump administration has also repeatedly lashed out at its northern neighbor, including recently pausing participation in a joint continental defense board with Canada that dates back to World War II. Instead of fanning the flames of conflict with Trump, Carney brushed off the move, saying “I wouldn’t overplay the importance of this.”
But no G7 leader has cracked the code of good relations with the erratic U.S. president more successfully than Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is set to appear at the summit as a model U.S. ally. She’s likely to leverage that with a request that the U.S. and other G7 countries pressure the Chinese government to ease up on its economic coercion campaign. Beijing has targeted Tokyo with export restrictions for items including rare earthsafter Takaichi announced in November that military aggression across the Taiwan Strait could represent a “survival-threatening situation” requiring a Japanese military response.
Takaichi’s melding of the persona of her political role model — Britain’s Conservative party “Iron Lady,” former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — with the sensibility of a motorcycle rocker has brokered rare personal chemistry with Trump. In a Truth Social post in October, Trump went so far as to praise her as a “person of great wisdom and strength.”
Takaichi has also pledged to double Japan’s defense spending. That’s played well with Trump, who has repeatedly slammed European allies he perceives as not paying their fair share on national defense — an issue that’s likely to rear its head again at next week’s summit.
Takaichi managed to seed enough goodwill with Trump to avoid a rebuke when she declined Trump’s request in March that Tokyo send forces to help secure the Strait of Hormuz due to constitutional restrictions. (That still didn’t spare her from Trump cracking a Pearl Harbor joke during their Oval Office meeting in March. Takaichi simply smiled and moved on.)
Other leaders have had a harder time recovering from similar clashes over the Iran war.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal to back the U.S. bombing of Iran appears to have irrevocably tainted his relationship with Trump, despite a strong start. These days, the once-special relationship between the U.K. and U.S. is “not good at all,” Trump told ITV News in April.
The feeling is mutual.
A European diplomat, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Trump-Starmer dynamic, said Starmer had been "burned" by Trump, and officials on both sides of the pondhave claimed it has become more difficult for Downing Street to speak to the White House about other matters, notably Ukraine.
Starmer isn’t the only one whose relationship with Trump has taken a dip since the start of the Iran war.
Both German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni initially enjoyed chummy dynamics with Trump that have since taken turns for the worse.
When the U.S. president first entered office, Meloni was hailed as the Trump whisperer, as he repeatedly showered praise on his Italian counterpart. That relationship soured when Meloni criticized Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the Iran war this spring, with Trump complaining that she was “no longer the same person.”
And Meloni is now facing domestic pressure to stop trying to appease Trump, as energy prices skyrocket because of the Iran war and Rome comes to terms with the reality that meeting Trump’s defense spending demands is financially unfeasible.
Merz’s fall from grace has been no less dramatic. After demonstrating an astute understanding of how to charm Trump, Merz made a tragic misstep during an appearance at a school in western Germany in April, slamming Washington for being “humiliated” in its war with Iran.
Things just haven’t been the same since. Trump has repeatedly railed against Merz’s criticisms and shortly thereafter called for a significant reduction of U.S. troops in Germany.
With Trump’s unpredictable nature — and the possibility of another flare up of fighting in the Middle East — allies are bracing for more potential fireworks at the summit.
A British official briefed on preparations for the summit said London was "acutely aware" of the potential for tensions at the meeting.
They said the U.K. is seeking to keep the U.S. onside through stressing its leadership with France of a planned multilateral mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz. London’s calculation, they said, was that even amid tense relations, it could be possible to win Trump over at the summit if G7 allies show "demonstrable" support on Iran.
Esther Webber, Phelim Kine, Zi-Ann Lum, Clea Caulcutt, Gordon Repinski and Giorgio Leali contributed to this report.
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