For the French president, Emmanuel Macron, this year’s meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) in the spa town of Évian-les-Bains from June 15 to 17 had several pressing issues to address. As well as reaching a coordinated approach towards artificial intelligence, trade and conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, Macron needed to get Donald Trump to stay for the entire meeting.
This was no easy task. the US president left the 2018 summit in Quebec, Canada early due to a summit with North Korea and personal tensions with the host, Justin Trudeau. And he left the 2025 summit in Alberta, also in Canada, due to the Israeli war with Iran, which the US was to join a few days later.
While the G7 meeting is normally a moment for some of the world’s biggest economies to show unity – with the US usually in lockstep with its G7 allies – the Trump era has made this event more unpredictable. The major questions facing Macron as host were: what might Trump say to undermine G7 unity – and would he leave early once again?
In both respects, Macron was able to avoid a negative outcome. But it was no easy feat. Macron’s masterstroke was to resort to flattery, inviting Trump to a dinner at the opulent 2,300 room Palace of Versailles at the end of the summit on June 17, billed as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of US independence. Macron had purposely pushed back the G7 schedule so that Trump could attend a mixed martial arts fight at the White House on his 80th birthday.
Kissing up to Trump was something that Europeans have gone along with for most of Trump’s first and second terms. But when European leaders failed to answer Trump’s call for assistance in the US and Israel’s war against Iran, they were the target of bitter attacks from the US president.
The US recently announced it is reducing the number of F-16 and F-15 fighter jets available to Nato from 150 to 100. Maritime reconnaissance aircraft would also be reduced from 26 to 15 and eight refuelling tanker jets that were previously available to Europe will also be withdrawn. This is a big deal for G7 member states, all of which – apart from Japan – are members of Nato.
Against this background, Macron did not want Trump and other geopolitical tensions to undermine the summit. One of his key victories was to achieve what appears to have been a united stance on Ukraine – something which Macron labelled as “re-synchronisation” after what he said was a “very deep change in the US approach”.
The Russian president, Vladmir Putin, may have hoped that the summit would expose divisions. But this year’s G7 meeting managed to highlight western unity on Ukraine, releasing a statement pledging unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its territorial integrity. Even Trump signed the statement after what he said was a “very good” meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky on the summit’s sidelines.
Ukraine will also receive more air defence systems along with licenses to produce them – with the US ready to provide “backstop” for these efforts.
Trump also signalled that with the Strait of Hormuz open, the sanctions on Russian oil sales he had lifted during the war with Iran would be reimposed, telling reporters he would do whatever he could to push for peace in Ukraine.
What a difference a year makes. The 2025 G7 summit ended without a unified statement on Ukraine after Trump’s walkout. Instead, the Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made his own statement, what he called a “chair’s summary”. It was reported that Trump would not agree to the original statement’s strong language against Russia.
Mending fences
This year Trump got what he wanted: praise for his 60-day ceasefire agreement with Iran, which he signed during the state dinner at the Palace of Versailles.
EPA/Yoan Valat
Just months ago Trump was lashing out at his European allies over Iran. It was a low point in relations that looked as if it would be hard to fix. In April, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had “humiliated” Trump, while Macron and Keir Starmer also issued defiant statements that they would not play ball with Trump’s demands for their assistance. Macron hit back at complaints from Israel and the US that “they are alone in an operation they decided on alone. It’s not our operation.”
Even Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni – once a staunch Trump ally – distanced herself, after Trump’s attack on Pope Leo for criticising the conflict, saying his behaviour towards the pope was “unacceptable”. But this week Meloni and Trump appeared to have made up. When European Council president, António Costa, joked to Trump and Meloni that they appeared to be “friends again”, Meloni replied: “We have always been friends.” Trump retorted: “I was abandoned.” Meloni responded with a smile: “No, you were not.”
This G7 showed European leaders are willing to make nice with Trump. Unlike last year there was no sense they felt they were walking on eggshells in dealing with the US president. A case in point: when Trump walked into the G7 meeting on Wednesday morning, the last to arrive at the summit table, he told the waiting leaders: “I’m the boss”. It was greeted with friendly laughter, rather than with derision.
Throwing a state banquet at Versailles for Trump has sent a clear message that Macron wants to preserve the transatlantic relationship – even though relations are strained.
The meeting was not without its tensions. There were concerns at what appeared to be Trump’s mixed messages on Ukraine when, despite his apparent backing for Zelensky, he commented that the war has “nothing to do with us”. And his assertion that if the Iran deal doesn’t work out the US would “go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head” will have worried assembled leaders.
But as they sat down to lobster, caviar and truffles in Versailles it appeared that the level of discord between the G7 leaders and Trump had subsided – at least for now.
