G7 summit: Closed-door disagreements, open disappointment

The Group of Seven (G7) and European Union leaders pose for a group photo in Kananaskis in the province of Alberta, Canada, June 16, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

ByJessica Durdu

The G7 Summit held in Kananaskis, Canada, from 15 to 17 June 2025, was convened amid one of the most volatile periods in recent Middle East history. Yet, rather than emerging as a platform of decisive global leadership, it instead laid bare the internal divisions and indecisiveness that now define the group. The summit, overshadowed by the escalating Iran-Israel crisis, offered little in the way of coordination, clarity, or confidence, casting doubt on the bloc's capacity to shape international responses to urgent global threats.

The erratic conduct of U.S. President Donald Trump throughout the summit was a striking feature of this diplomatic failure. Inconsistent in tone and often contradicting his own delegation, Trump dominated headlines not with leadership, but with disruption.

His early departure from the summit, justified vaguely as due to "something important," reinforced the impression that Washington was disengaged or even deliberately undermining multilateral diplomacy. Behind closed doors, reports suggest Trump resisted efforts to endorse even the modest joint statement on Iran-Israel. His refusal to sign the statement, already one of the most diluted in G7 history, was a potent signal of disagreement and dysfunction. His accelerating statements regarding the Iran-Israel tension were also far from helping other actors globally who are all trying to calm down the actors in the region.

The language of the statement itself was telling. While reaffirming Israel's right to self-defense and labeling Iran as the "principal source of regional instability and terror," the document offered no concrete diplomatic initiatives, ceasefire roadmap, or unified position. Rather, it appeared to balance competing national agendas under a thin veneer of consensus. By emphasizing general energy market stability and civilian protection in generic terms, it avoided addressing the core challenge: the urgent need for coordinated de-escalation. That even this vague language could not secure unanimous backing reflects just how paralyzed the group has become.

This paralysis was felt acutely by external actors who had vested hopes in the summit, most notably, Ukraine'sPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had anticipated a united front and expanded security pledges from G7 leaders, was met instead with diplomatic hedging. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, probably as a host country gesture, did announce a C$2 billion ($1.47 billion)package of military aid, yet it quickly became clear that broader ambitions for a robust G7 statement on Ukraine were quietly shelved. A senior Canadian official confirmed that Ottawa dropped the initiative after encountering resistance from the United States. For Kyiv, this was a stark disappointment. For observers, it was further evidence that the G7 is unable, or unwilling, to exert collective influence even in Europe, its traditional sphere of concern.

The deep fractures within the G7 became unmistakable through an unusual procedural move: Carney, as summit chair, issued his own statement instead of a final joint communiqué. This act, though technical on the surface, was diplomatically symbolic. It conveyed that the leaders could not reconcile their positions behind closed doors and had instead opted for a disaggregated, less impactful conclusion. In international diplomacy, where unity is often as powerful as substance, such a divergence is deeply consequential. It not only reflects disagreement, it broadcasts it.

Beyond these two core crises, the summit released a series of joint statements on transnational repression, AI for prosperity, critical minerals, migrant smuggling, wildfires, and quantum technologies. Though these topics are relevant and future-facing, the language used was formulaic and vague. None offered strategic blueprints or measurable objectives. It appeared as if the selection and framing of topics were carefully crafted to prevent disagreements from surfacing publicly, more a performance of unity than its genuine expression.

At a time when the world is grappling with war, climate disruption, forced migration, and the strategic implications of AI, the G7's inability to produce concrete, unified action reveals a worrying pattern: a group trapped between nostalgia and irrelevance. Kananaskis was not simply a missed opportunity; it was a moment of exposure. The G7, once seen as the steering wheel of global governance, now appears to be adrift, fragmented, uncertain, and reactive.

In its failure to deliver coherence on the crisis in the Middle East, or in Ukraine, or other general aspects like innovation in global governance, the summit made one point exceedingly clear: when unity is most needed, the G7 can no longer be counted on to lead.

Jessica Durdu, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a foreign affairs specialist and PhD candidate in international relations at China Foreign Affairs University.