G7 to start amid Trump trade tensions and Iran-Israel crisis
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog
When Donald Trump last came to Canada for a G7 summit, the enduring image was of him seated with his arms folded defiantly as then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel stared daggers at him.
If there is a shared mission at this year’s G7 summit, which begins Monday in Canada’s Rocky Mountains, it is a desire to minimize any fireworks at a moment of combustible tensions.
Trump already has hit several dozen nations with severe tariffs that risk a global economic slowdown. There is little progress on settling the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and now a new and escalating conflict between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Add to all of that the problems of climate change, immigration, drug trafficking, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and China’s continued manufacturing superiority and chokehold on key supply chains.
So it looks like the Trump, and the leaders of Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Canada are in for a busy time.
Stay with us for all the developments:
In other news:
Key events
US stock index futures rose on Monday as easing oil prices boosted sentiment despite ongoing attacks between Israel and Iran, while investors focused on the upcoming Federal Reserve meeting.
Wall Street indexes shed more than 1% on Friday as oil prices surged 7% after Israel and Iran traded air strikes, feeding investor worries that the combat could widely disrupt oil exports from the Middle East.
Leaders from the Group of Seven nations began annual talks on Monday. The dangers of further escalation in the Israel-Iran conflict loomed over the meeting, with US President Donald Trump expressing hope on Sunday that a deal could be done, but no signs of the fighting abating on the fourth day of war.
As Republican senators consider President Donald Trump’s big bill that could slash federal spending and extend tax cuts, a new survey shows most U.S. adults don’t think the government is overspending on the programs the GOP has focused on cutting, like Medicaid and food stamps.
Americans broadly support increasing or maintaining existing levels of funding for popular safety net programs, including Social Security and Medicare, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. They’re more divided on spending around the military and border security, and most think the government is spending too much on foreign aid.
The poll points to a disconnect between Republicans’ policy agenda and public sentiment around the domestic programs that are up for debate in the coming weeks.
New rules allow VA doctors to refuse to treat Democrats
Aaron Glantz
Doctors at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide could refuse to treat unmarried veterans and Democrats under new hospital guidelines imposed following an executive order by Donald Trump.
The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.
Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not explicitly prohibited by federal law.
Read the full piece here:
Brussels negotiators hope that offering to accept US tariffs of 10% across all of the European Union’s exports into the United States will avert any higher duties on cars, drugs and electronics, newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Monday.
Citing high-ranking EU negotiators, the paper said the offer to US counterparts would come only under certain conditions and would not be billed as permanent.
Handelsblatt also said the EU was, in return, ready to cut its tariffs on US -made vehicles, and to possibly change technical or legal hurdles to make it easier for U.S. manufacturers to sell their cars in Europe.
The EU’s position comes partly from the realisation that US President Donald Trump will rely on some tariff revenues to fund planned tax cuts.
Trump v Harvard case back in court
A federal judge is set to consider on Monday whether to extend an order blocking President Donald Trump’s plan to bar foreign nationals from entering the United States to study at Harvard University.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs during a hearing in Boston will weigh whether to issue an injunction barring Trump’s administration from implementing his latest bid to curtail Harvard’s ability to host international students while the university’s lawsuit challenging the restrictions plays out.
Almost 6,800 international students attended Harvard in its most recent school year, making up about 27% of the student population of the prestigious school located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. China and India are among the top countries of origin for these students. The judge scheduled the hearing after issuing a temporary restraining order on June 6 preventing the administration from implementing a proclamation that Trump had signed a day earlier.
Patrick Wintour
A bright spark in the Canadian team preparing the G7 Kananaskis summit, in the ridiculously beautiful Canadian Rockies, decided to insert the issue of wildfires onto a crowded agenda. It seemed an eminently sensible and Canadian thing for the eminently sensible Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, to do.
After all there are currently an estimated 225 blazes in Canada, including 120 classified as out of control, and they are raging to the west in British Columbia across to northern parts of Alberta. Indeed it is likely to be Canada’s second worst year on record for wildfires. Moreover, Carney had an ingenious solution ready to hand – a Kananaskis wildfire charter including “greater equipment interoperability” between the G7 members.
But unfortunately wildfires were already on the G7 agenda, albeit in an altogether broader, even more existential sense.
Read Patrick Wintour’s analysis from Banff:
The man suspected of opening fire on two Minnesota legislators and their spouses on 14 June, killing one legislator and her husband, was apprehended late on Sunday night and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder, the state’s governor, Tim Walz, said at a news conference.
Vance Boelter, 57, is suspected of fatally shooting the Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence early on Saturday. Boelter is also suspected of shooting the state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home, seriously injuring them.
Read our full report here:
Graeme Wearden
Foreign investment into the US could be threatened by Donald Trump’s new “revenge” taxes, analysts have warned.
A provision within the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will allow the US to apply higher taxes on foreign individuals, businesses and investors connected to jurisdictions that impose “unfair foreign taxes” on US individuals and companies.
Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange could choose to avoid the measure by redomiciling in New York.
Read the full report here:
Senator tries to limit Trump’s war powers
A Democratic senator introduced legislation on Monday to prevent US President Donald Trump from using military force against Iran without Congress’s authorization, as an escalating battle between Israel and Iran raised fears of broader conflict.
Tim Kaine of Virginia has tried for years to wrest back Congress’s authority to declare war from the White House.
During Trump’s first term, in 2020, Kaine introduced a similar resolution to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran. That measure passed both the Senate and House of Representatives, winning some Republican support, but did not garner enough votes to survive the Republican president’s veto.
Kaine said his latest war powers resolution underscores that the US Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the sole power to declare war and requires that any hostility with Iran be explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for the use of military force.
She finds the whole idea absurd. To Prof Marci Shore, the notion that the Guardian, or anyone else, should want to interview her about the future of the US is ridiculous. She’s an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe and describes herself as a “Slavicist”, yet here she is, suddenly besieged by international journalists keen to ask about the country in which she insists she has no expertise: her own. “It’s kind of baffling,” she says.
Marci Shore made news around the world when her family moved to Canada. With Jonathan Freedland, she discusses Trump, teaching history and how terror atomises society:
Police release custody photo of Minnesota suspect
A custody photo has been released of the man suspected of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another, who crawled to officers in surrender Sunday after they located him in the woods near his home, ending a massive, nearly two-day search that put the entire state on edge.
Vance Boelter was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder. He is accused of posing as a police officer and fatally shooting former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home early Saturday in the northern Minneapolis suburbs.
Authorities say he also shot Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette. They were injured at their residence about 9 miles (about 15 kilometers) away.
Investors are gearing up for key central bank meetings this week, with a particular eye on the US Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan, as well as talks with Washington aimed at avoiding Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs.
At the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies, the Middle East crisis will be discussed along with trade in light of Trump’s tariff blitz.
Investors are also awaiting bank policy meetings, with the Fed and BoJ the standouts.
Both are expected to stick to their decisions for now but traders will be keeping a close watch on their statements for an idea about the plans for interest rates, with US officials under pressure from Trump to cut.
G7 to start amid Trump trade tensions and Iran-Israel crisis
Good morning and welcome to our US politics blog
When Donald Trump last came to Canada for a G7 summit, the enduring image was of him seated with his arms folded defiantly as then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel stared daggers at him.
If there is a shared mission at this year’s G7 summit, which begins Monday in Canada’s Rocky Mountains, it is a desire to minimize any fireworks at a moment of combustible tensions.
Trump already has hit several dozen nations with severe tariffs that risk a global economic slowdown. There is little progress on settling the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and now a new and escalating conflict between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Add to all of that the problems of climate change, immigration, drug trafficking, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and China’s continued manufacturing superiority and chokehold on key supply chains.
So it looks like the Trump, and the leaders of Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Canada are in for a busy time.
Stay with us for all the developments:
In other news:
The White House has stayed decidedly mum about its goals for the G7, which originated as a 1973 finance ministers’ meeting to address the oil crisis and steadily evolved into a yearly summit that is meant to foster personal relationships among world leaders and address global problems.
There is no plan for a joint statement this year from the G7, a sign that the Trump administration sees no need to build a shared consensus with fellow democracies if it views such a statement as contrary to its goals of new tariffs, more fossil fuel production and a Europe that is less dependent on the U.S. military.
“The Trump administration almost certainly believes that no deal is better than a bad deal,” said Caitlin Welsh, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank who was part of Trump’s team for the G7 in Trump’s first term.
