G7: The results of the summit in Canada

Despite the early departure of US PresidentDonald Trump (79) and the lack of progress on key contentious issues, several G7 countries have given their summit in Canada a positive assessment. "This G7 summit has been far more successful than I initially thought," said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (69; CDU) in Kananaskis. He pointed out that an agreement on consensual statements on seven topics had been reached. French President Emmanuel Macron (47) praised Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (60), as host, for keeping the group of leading democratic economic powers together.

Even US President Trump, who disrupted the summit with his early departure and lashed out at Macron from the plane, praised the summit: "I loved it. And I think we got a lot done." However, he only specifically mentioned the progress announced at the meeting in the Rocky Mountains on his trade pact with Great Britain – which actually has nothing to do with the G7 summit.

So what can the group of states show after the summit in the Rocky Mountains – and what was left behind?

The first G7 summit of Trump's second term did not end in a major debacle. That may not sound like much, but it was not a foregone conclusion given the significant differences between the US president and his colleagues. Recall how, during his first term, Trump scuppered the group's 2018 Canada summit by subsequently withdrawing his approval of the final declaration. Host Carney was able to avoid a fiasco of this magnitude. The West is still capable of dialogue (at least to a limited extent).

This is also important because a large part of the group will meet again next week at the NATO summit in The Hague, where, under pressure from Trump, a new NATO target for defense spending is to be adopted. Ultimately, the question at stake is nothing less than whether the US will continue to act as a protecting power for Europe.

Carney can at least point to a few concrete results. The G7 leaders adopted a total of seven declarations, for example, on combating irregular migration and human trafficking. Specifically, they address the need to intensify the hunt for smuggling gangs through even better monitoring of money flows.

With a new action plan for critical minerals, the G7 countries aim to reduce their dependence on authoritarian resource powers like China and secure their own supply chains for strategically important raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths. And the G7 aims to take a pioneering role in the use of artificial intelligence – not only for economic growth, but also for social benefits.

One statement came as a real surprise: the shared position on the war between Israel and Iran. At least on one of the most explosive geopolitical issues of the moment, the group was able to find common ground: a commitment to Israel's right of self-defense, a call for the protection of civilians, and the dictum that Iran should never possess a nuclear bomb.

Trump and the Europeans continue to disagree on the war in Ukraine . Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (47) traveled to Canada specifically to lobby Trump, together with the European G7 states. They want him to increase pressure on Moscow and approve new US sanctions. But by the time the G7 leaders met with Zelensky on Tuesday, Trump had long since left.

A breakthrough in the tariff dispute is still not in sight . The President of the Commission responsible for the EU , Ursula von der Leyen (66), spoke with Trump about the issue in Canada, but was unable to announce any concrete progress. Only Chancellor Merz spread some optimism. He expressed confidence that at least a limited deal with the USA could be reached by July 9th - for example, for selected sectors such as the automotive industry. If no agreement is reached by July 9th, new high US tariffs will, as things stand, apply to almost all exports from the EU to the United States - and the EU would, in turn, respond with tariffs on imports from the USA.

A comprehensive joint final declaration had already been omitted in advance to avoid failure. This underscores the fact that the G7 cannot find a common line on the major contentious issues.

Some issues on which the G7 countries had placed important emphasis in the past were never discussed at all because agreement with Trump would have been impossible anyway. For example, foreign aid – the agency responsible for this in the US was summarily shut down under Trump. And although the G7 participants expressed deep concern in a statement about the "record-breaking wildfires" of the past ten years, climate change was not mentioned as a key factor due to pressure from the US. Both topics were mandatory topics at previous G7 summits.