The no-tension G7

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has floated a plan at the G7 summit to defuse rising tensions in the Gulf by partially lifting the US oil embargo on Iran in exchange for Tehran’s return to full compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement restricting the country’s nuclear programme.

Donald Trump was noncommittal about the plan. Asked for his reaction at the summit at the French Atlantic resort of Biarritz, the president said he had not discussed the proposal with Macron, contradicting a statement from the Élysée that the G7 had agreed to support a French diplomatic initiative.

  The Guardian

I guess the UK Guardian is also fake news.

America’s differing stance on the climate crisis has been a feature of the past two G7 summits, and just one issue on which divisions were so deep that the meeting was increasingly referred to as the G6 in Quebec last year, when Trump left early.

[...]

US officials insisted the US policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran was working and had international support.

“The G7 countries all agreed the President’s maximum pressure campaign on Iran is having an impact, and that it should continue,” an official familiar with the talks said.

An American official, no doubt.

Under the 2015 joint comprehensive programme of action (JCPOA), Iran accepted strict curbs on its activities in return for tax relief.

Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in May 2018 and has since steadily increased sanctions against Iran. In response, Iran has begun gradually to break out of the JCPOA limits, increasing its stock of low enriched uranium for example, and raising the level at which it enriches uranium. Iranian forces have also stepped up the harassment of oil shipping going through the strait of Hormuz.

The other parties to the JCPOA – the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China and the EU – have urged both the US and Iran to return to the agreement.

French officials were optimistic they could persuade the US that Macron’s plan was a better alternative to a drift towards a new Middle East conflict.

That's some seriously misplaced optimism.

Senior aides in Donald Trump’s entourage have accused the G7 host and French president, Emmanuel Macron, of seeking to embarrass his US counterpart by making the summit focus on “niche issues” such as climate change, according to multiple US media reports.

  The Guardian

Only in the current ultra-right-wing climate is climate change a niche issue.

Macron’s plan to heal divisions among G7 leaders in Biarritz this weekend apparently did not factor in the need to keep Trump’s aides happy too.

The spark for the fuse appeared to be lunch. Macron whisked the US president away for an impromptu meal for two on an oceanfront terrace at the Hotel du Palais. Trump initially appeared frosty but later called it “the best meeting we have yet had”.

But even as Mr. Trump bragged about what he called “a special relationship” with Mr. Macron, saying they have “been friends for a long time,” members of Mr. Trump’s administration were publicly and privately dumping on the French president and his team.

[...]

Senior administration officials said that the agenda would center too much on issues designed to play well with Mr. Macron’s domestic audience — like climate change, income and gender equality, and African development — and was engineered to highlight disagreements with Mr. Trump’s administration.

They accused Mr. Macron’s aides of ignoring pleas by Trump administration officials to focus the summit, which runs through Monday, on national security and a looming economic slowdown.

  NYT

So, that's what Fox will report, and what Trump will be tweeting soon.

[A]ccording to Mr. Trump’s advisers, the success or failure of the two-day gathering will be measured by how seriously Mr. Macron and the others address a weakening economy — something that threatens Mr. Trump’s own re-election campaign if it drags down the American economy next year.

[...]

Mr. Trump easily tires of the niceties of diplomacy. Last year, he arrived at the G7 following a Twitter tirade about tariffs with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, whom he continued to berate after leaving and backing out of the joint statement with the other leaders.

Before arriving this year, Mr. Macron said he had decided to abandon efforts to craft a joint agreement at the end of the summit, describing it as an attempt to avoid the inevitable clash with Mr. Trump. He told reporters it would be “pointless” to try to reach consensus on issues like climate change with a leader who has made his contrary views quite clear.

The two men have also recently clashed over Mr. Macron’s imposition of a digital services tax on big American tech companies. Mr. Trump has threatened to retaliate with a tax on French wine, adding to the trade tensions between the countries.

[...]

[D]own the road in Bayonne, 13,000 police officers were arrayed, firing tear gas and water cannons on Saturday to disperse protests by demonstrators opposed to globalization and other tenets the Group of 7 represents.

Meanwhile, when he has down time in his hotel, instead of focusing on the issues, Trump is tweeting shit from watching TV.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.