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Donald Trump said he was not ready to impose new sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine despite mounting pressure from G7 allies and members of Congress to heighten the pressure on Moscow.
Speaking alongside Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister at the G7 summit in Canada on Monday, the US president said he was sceptical of new sanctions on Russia, even as other members of the group were expected to announce further punitive measures against Moscow.
“Don’t forget, you know, sanctions cost us a lot of money. When I sanction a country, that costs the US a lot of money, a tremendous amount of money,” Trump said. “Sanctions are not that easy. It’s not just a one-way street.”
The US president’s comments highlighted the rift among western allies over the war in Ukraine, on the eve of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s arrival at the summit.
Trump has grown frustrated with his inability to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, which he had pledged during the 2024 campaign. Yet he has been unwilling to take more punitive steps against Russia despite calls to do so from many European countries and certain Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Lindsey Graham, the senator from South Carolina.
Earlier in the day, Trump had said it had been “big mistake” to exclude Russia from G7 summits in his first comments in Kananaskis, flanked by Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister.
Trump has long said he would like to see the G7 return to a G8 format, bringing Moscow back into the fold as it was before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“This was a big mistake. You wouldn’t have that war,” Trump said, referring to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which started in 2022. “[Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anybody else because he was insulted when he got thrown out of the G8.”
The US president said it was “not a bad idea” to have China as part of the G7, which has for decades included the world’s largest industrialised economies and liberal democracies. China and Russia are part of the G20, a wider multilateral group that includes the world’s largest economies.
Trump’s remarks came as Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, was invited to join the group on Tuesday for a special session on the conflict with Russia. The US president and Zelenskyy are also expected to have a bilateral meeting on Tuesday.
In his own opening remarks, Carney had noted the “G7 is nothing without US leadership”.
The US and Canada have been trying to reach a settlement to the trade disputes that have flared after Trump imposed steep new tariffs on Canadian metal imports into the US. Carney’s office later said they had “agreed to pursue negotiations toward a deal within the coming 30 days”.
Meanwhile, Trump on Monday signed an executive order to implement the US-UK trade agreement unveiled last month, a significant win for Starmer that will lower tariffs on UK car exports and remove levies on aerospace parts. Outstanding issues over UK steel exports still remain.
Trump also met with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, who said they had “instructed the teams to accelerate their work to strike a good and fair [trade] deal”.
“Let’s get it done,” von der Leyen added. The meeting was their first bilateral discussion since Trump’s inauguration. He has threatened the EU with 50 per cent tariffs if they do not strike a deal by July 9.
It was unclear whether G7 leaders would find a common position or message on the conflict between Israel and Iran that broke out on the eve of the summit, but Trump urged Tehran to negotiate.
“It’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk,” Trump said. “And they should talk immediately, before it’s too late.”
When asked whether the US had provided intelligence support for Israel, Trump said Washington “had always supported Israel” and added “Israel is doing very well right now”.
Managing Trump has been an unofficial theme for other G7 leaders, who fear his often inconsistent positions on matters of diplomacy and trade make reaching consensus challenging.
Trump’s threat to make Canada the 51st state of the US has added a personal edge for Carney, who is hosting the summit.
He met with Starmer in Ottawa on Saturday and Sunday, with the UK leader emphasising Canada’s “sovereignty” as part of the Commonwealth.
On Sunday evening in Kananaskis, Carney and Starmer had drinks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Aides insisted the unofficial meeting over wine was spontaneous, but observers viewed it as a last-minute co-ordination session over handling Trump during the summit.
Starmer insisted on Monday that there was “consensus for de-escalation” in the Israel-Iran conflict among the G7 leaders. But people familiar with the matter said there was as no statement on the conflict agreed by the G7 leaders.
Additional reporting from Henry Foy in Kananaskis