NOURNEWS - Following Angela Merkel's negative response to Donald Trump's invitation to attend the G7 summit in Washington, the US president announced that he would postpone the meeting.
The G7 summit was scheduled to take place at the end of June with the participation of US, Italian, Japanese, French, British, German, Canadian and EU leaders at Camp David in Maryland, near Washington.
After announcing the absence of the German Chancellor at the G7 summit and considering the possibility of similar action by other members of the group, Trump postponed the meeting and announced that the current structure of the G7 is old and outdated.
"I’m postponing it because I don’t feel as a G7 it probably represents what’s going on in the world," Trump added.
By holding the meeting in Washington, Trump was trying to normalize the unrest after the Coronavirus outbreak, and to present the summit as a sign of the reopening and return to normalcy in the United States.
In recent days, in addition to the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, at least 30 cities in ten states, including Washington, D.C., have been subjected to violent social protests after a black man was killed by police in Minneapolis.
Although the reason for Merkel's absence from the G7 summit was due to the coronavirus outbreak, a senior White House official, who did not want to be named, implied that in a recent phone call between Merkel and Trump, differences between the two leaders over climate change, NATO, the transfer of Russian gas to Germany and relations with China and the nuclear deal with Iran have intensified.
NOURNEWS