Annual G7 summit set to focus on world economy

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump and other leaders of the world's most industrialized nations will open their annual G7 summit over the weekend by discussing the global economy.

White House officials said on Thursday that the session was added to Sunday's schedule at the last minute at Trump's request.

Trump insists the US economy is strong despite fears that a recession may be on the horizon. At the same time, global economic growth has slowed due to weakness in Germany, Europe's largest economy, and a slowdown in China, the world's second-largest economy, as it remains locked in a trade standoff with the United States.

The dour global outlook is partly a reflection of Trump's combative approach to trade with China and other nations he has hit or threatened to hit with tariffs.

Trump and the six other leaders of the Group of Seven nations will begin meeting on Saturday for three days in the southwestern French resort town of Biarritz. France holds the 2019 presidency of the G7, which also includes the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Those leaders are to meet at an informal dinner on Saturday, where they are expected to discuss foreign policy and security issues before more formal working sessions on Sunday and Monday.

Trump is also scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the summit with several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Boris Johnson, Britain's new prime minister, will also have his first face-to-face meeting with Trump, a personal friend, since taking office a few weeks ago.

Trump also plans to raise the issue of a landmark tax France is imposing on major tech companies like Google and Facebook despite Trump's threats of retaliatory tariffs on French wine. Paris has said the tax is meant as a temporary measure pending the conclusion of negotiations on an international deal France wants to work out with the US.

The tax is designed to keep multinational corporations from avoiding taxes by setting up European headquarters in low-tax European countries. Currently, companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Airbnb and Uber pay very little tax on their significant business in countries like France.

The US government said the tax is discriminatory against US business.

The European Union hopes to ease trade tensions with the US during the summit, a senior EU official said on Thursday. "We see trade tensions as the single most important risk factor to the growth of the global economy," the senior EU official said. The bloc would be seeking to defuse them and to concentrate on a "positive" EU-US trade agenda.

The EU would also prefer to resolve a dispute between aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus without resorting to tariffs, the official said.

Agencies

(China Daily 08/24/2019 page8)