Trump postpones G-7 meeting again, plans to invite 4 more countries
President Donald Trump announced Saturday he is postponing the G-7 summit until the fall and plans to invite four additional non-member nations — including Russia.
The president, speaking to reporters aboard an Air Force One flight back to Washington from Kennedy Space Center, said he hopes to expand the annual meeting of the world's most economically advanced countries to include Australia, India, Russia and South Korea, according to a pool report.
"I don’t feel that as a G-7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world,” Trump explained. “It’s a very outdated group of countries.”
“We want Australia, we want India, we want South Korea. And what do we have? That’s a nice group of countries right there,” he said.
Trump described the newly expanded gathering as the “G-10 or G-11,” and said he had “roughly” discussed the concept with the leaders of the additional countries.
But the president seemed unsure of the timing of the proposed, musing aloud about when to hold it.
“Maybe I’ll do it after the election," he said at one point, before reversing himself.
"I think a good time would be before the election,” he then said, suggesting the weekend either before or after the U.N. General Assembly, which is slated to begin on Sept. 15
The Group of Seven countries, previously the G-8, included Russia until its membership was suspended in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea in Ukraine.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday declined Trump’s invitation to attend a Washington summit rescheduled for June, citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, POLITICO reported.
The meeting was supposed to take place via videoconference after Trump in March scrapped a planned in-person summit at Camp David due to the pandemic.
Trump, however, had indicated he wanted to hold portions of the June gathering in person at the White House and Camp David.
Earlier Saturday, Trump spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss progress on convening the group, according to a White House readout that provided few additional details.
