There Was No Breakthrough On Trade At The G7. Trump’s Ok With That.

There was no breakthrough on trade at the G7 this week. It isn’t bothering President Donald Trump.

While expectations for trade agreements were low heading into this week’s G7 summit, the confab of world leaders in the Canadian Rockies yielded no apparent progress between the U.S. and major trading partners like the European Union and Japan.

The lack of movement has left foreign leaders and domestic businesses on edge with a little less than three weeks until Trump’s July 8 deadline for striking trade accords. While trade conversations may continue on the sidelines of the NATO summit next month, G7 was widely seen as the best opportunity for Trump and world leaders to break through deadlocks that have persisted for weeks.

But Trump is operating on his own timeline. He insists he can unilaterally set tariffs for any country whenever he pleases, delay them as he desires and use that cudgel to negotiate from a position of strength, even as critics warn his stance threatens global economic uncertainty.

"I don't think there's much urgency,” said one person close to the White House, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the trade talks. "For the president, it doesn't matter. He's fine ending up with tariffs.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who stayed behind to represent the U.S. at G7 after the president departed early amid escalating conflict in the Middle East, has said it’s likely Trump will grant countries an extension so long as they continue to negotiate in “good faith,” but that has done little to ease fears of U.S. trading partners and businesses who are begging for certainty.

The hopes for G7 were always modest. Trump, perhaps, would leave Canada telegraphing positivity about ongoing trade talks, aides and allies said, even as the actual negotiations are facing stumbling blocks, from auto tariffs to the U.S.’s baseline 10 percent levy. They didn't even get that far, with Trump departing the summit after spending just a few hours with his counterparts in a secluded mountain lodge.

“Expectations were obviously high because the chance to interact with the decider-in-chief on trade is rare and valuable,” said Everett Eissenstat, a former Trump trade official. “I’m sure a lot of leaders were interested in doing that and may be disappointed that the president had been diverted by other matters.”

Still, Eissenstat added that he would be “a little” surprised if the U.S. failed to notch a trade framework with even just one other country by the July 8 deadline, suggesting that the president’s top lieutenants will be under significant pressure to do so.

“If you’ve got a deadline out there, it drives interest among those working to deliver an agreement to the president that he’s going to like,” Eissenstat said. “It's a good incentive to do it.”

Juxtaposed against a very real conflict between Israel and Iran, some Trump allies note that the administration’s brewing trade war is a crisis of his own making — and one that he has immense power to ratchet up or down.

White House aides downplayed the lack of movement on trade out of the G7, acknowledging that principal-level discussions can be helpful but saying that neither the U.S. nor other countries went into Canada thinking trade deals would be hashed out there. Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, called the discussions in Canada “productive” and “substantive.”

“The Administration’s trade and economic team continues to work around the clock … to strike more deals that will finally level the playing field for American industries and workers,” Desai said in a statement.

Trump during his brief time in Canada repeatedly told reporters that he was pressing for a quick succession of trade deals, expressing optimism that several would come together by July 8.

"A lot of them," he said when asked if there were more announcements on deck following his signing of the U.S.-U.K. trade deal.

"We're very far down the line with a lot of deals," he said later without providing specifics.

But in a series of private meetings with other G7 leaders, Trump appeared to make little progress, with the foreign delegations indicating afterward that much of the details of the negotiations remained up in the air. Trump didn't even discuss tariffs during a one-on-one meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday, said German officials granted anonymity to discuss the private session, with the two leaders instead spending much of the 20-minute pull-aside talking about the Middle East and other security issues.

“Trump listens, he asks questions, we don't agree on all the answers, but it is a real dialogue. And this dialogue took place here, over several hours over the course of yesterday, including yesterday evening, and that alone is a value in itself,” Merz said in an interview with POLITICO. “We understand each other better, we exchange arguments and we will also find solutions.”

Trump eventually acknowledged as much, saying on Air Force One after abruptly leaving the summit a day early that while there was a “chance” for a deal with Japan, key sticking points like auto tariffs remained unresolved. As for the European Union, Trump complained hours after a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the bloc isn’t “offering a fair deal yet,” accusing it instead of being “formed in order to hurt the United States on trade.” And he reiterated threats to slap levies of his own choosing on any country he feels isn’t doing enough to negotiate on trade, like he did with the EU last month.

"We're actually finished with every deal if you really think about it," Trump said, indicating that even he felt the discussions were little more than formalities. "All I have to do is say this is what you're going to pay. But, it's nice to be nice."

Trump’s abrupt departure was a surprise to foreign leaders clamoring to meet with the president. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum touted a “very good” phone call with Trump, in lieu of a meeting that was planned for the confab. The country had hoped to use the face-to-face meeting to finalize a deal to remove U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, before Trump left the summit early.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was muted in his Tuesday assessment of the progress made during a pull-aside with Trump in Canada, telling reporters the two countries remain divided over the issue of the U.S.’s 25 percent tariffs on auto imports.

"We've been exploring the possibility of a deal down to the wire,” Ishiba said. “But there are still points where our views remain divided.”

And while European leaders, including Merz, left Canada sounding an optimistic note, trade experts note that the hopeful tenor likely has more to do with the particular friction between the U.S. and the EU — after Trump threatened to slap the bloc with 50 percent tariffs last month.

"I don't think there was real progress of any kind,” said one EU official. “Trump has been made aware of that reality many, many times.”

The president did, however, manage to finalize a trade agreement with the U.K., after preliminary details were announced in May. Trump and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed the deal in Canada on Tuesday, which will lower tariffs on British autos from 25 percent to 10 percent by the end of June and carve out U.K. aerospace products, like engines and similar aircraft parts, from the U.S.’s 10 percent baseline tariff.

Still, even that agreement highlighted the work left to be done. The signed papers, some of which ended up scattered on the ground as Trump tried to display them to reporters gathered at the G7, omitted a key part of the original deal announced last month — keeping steel and aluminum tariffs at 25 percent for now, instead of 0 percent as originally agreed.

The one other sign of progress on trade out of the G7 was even less substantive. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney set a 30-day clock for trade negotiations between the two countries, although Canadian officials acknowledged at the summit that the countries have much more work to do before a deal is set.

Carney earlier this month committed to meeting the NATO security alliance's current spending target of 2 percent in 2025, addressing a long-standing irritant for the Trump administration. Canada also recently proposed legislation that will give law enforcement new powers on the border, potentially influenced by Trump’s focus on illegal migration.

“The defense spending and border bill seem important starts that have them in a friendly mood. We will see,” a Canadian official said.

Meanwhile, businesses are clamoring for certainty that will allow them to make forward looking decisions about where to invest and expand their operations. That means Trump can’t kick the can down the road on tariffs forever.

"I don’t think the Trump administration has any idea how challenging this is for businesses,” said one representative of a major industry group that works closely with the administration.

Jan Philipp Burgard and Maximilian Lembke contributed to this report.