Donald Trump (centre) at the G7 Charlevoix/Adam Scotti

By Lisa Van Dusen

January 29, 2025

In a recent Policy Q & A, Peter Boehm, the independent Canadian senator, six-time G7 Sherpa and former career diplomat, made a number of recommendations as to how to Trump-proof (not in so many words) the upcoming Kananaskis G7. He also raised a possibility.

“Will things get to a point where there might be a meeting of the G6 with the number-one agenda item being a discussion on how to deal with the US?” Boehm said. “Given Trump’s repeated statements and odd musings about Canada during the first days of his presidency, one could argue that anything is possible.”

Indeed, given the early, autocratic course the Trump presidency has taken both domestically and internationally, the question of what to do about the Kananaskis G7, scheduled for June 15-17 will begin to loom larger, especially if he does impose falsely rationalized, illegal tariffs against the host country.

As with so many choices compelled by the 21st-century political and geopolitical domination tactics for which Donald Trump has become an unofficial, undiplomatic global ambassador, this one is extraordinary and replete with potential consequences, foreseeable and not.

Either the G7 refrains from the heretofore unimaginable act of suspending the United States and is subjected to another G-hijacking, complete with performative scene-stealing and a working lunch upstaged by trade-war talk over elk terrine; or, the G7 suspends the United States and is portrayed in the usual propaganda circles as weakened for being reduced to the G6 (cue comparisons to the lately expanded BRICs membership — absent the detail that the principal privilege of that membership is protected, protracted personal power — followed by a predictable if not preordained threat from Trump to join it).

While this choice may seem unprecedented because this time it’s America, such an inhibition against G7 action disregards the assault Donald Trump is currently staging against his own country as the world’s democratic superpower under the highly misdirectional rationale of making America great again.

Russia’s suspension from the G8 in 2014 after 17 years of post-Soviet membership was provoked by the military invasion and annexation of Crimea as the first major statement of its expansionist intentions toward Ukraine. While Trump hasn’t invaded Canada, he has threatened annexation multiple times, vowing to weaken the country first by “economic force”, in keeping with the A.J.P. Taylor observation that all wars are economic (For what it’s worth, Trump’s equally coercive tariffs in 2018 made no mention of fentanyl or border security in their casus belli).

In Russia’s case, the G7 cancelled the scheduled Sochi G8 based on the host country’s aggression toward a democratic neighbour, suspended Russia’s membership in the group, but stopped short of outright expulsion. (In classic Lavrovian fashion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov retorted that one can’t be kicked out of a group that doesn’t issue membership cards).

As with so many choices compelled by the 21st-century political and geopolitical domination tactics for which Donald Trump has become an unofficial, undiplomatic global ambassador, this one is extraordinary and replete with potential consequences,foreseeable and not.

In its statement on the suspension — the Hague Declaration of March 24, 2014 — the G7 deplored Vladimir Putin’s actions as “a serious challenge to the rule of law around the world” and a concern for all nations. “International law prohibits the acquisition of part or all of another state’s territory through coercion or force,” the statement said. “To do so violates the principles upon which the international system is built.”

In the 11 years since then, political and geopolitical power consolidation tactics have changed. Today’s include the manipulation of individuals and events through coercion, intimidation and corruption, and the manipulation of public perception through relentless lies and propaganda, all serving the larger manipulation of narratives to produce otherwise impossible outcomes of the sort that have massively shifted power away from democracy classic (i.e. people) and into the hands of unelected individuals, non-state actors and “elected” autocrats, all of whom have a stake in a particular kind of future that doesn’t include human freedom, privacy or any of the other quality-of-life protections of democracy.

So, while the prohibition of the acquisition “of part or all of another state’s territory through coercion or force” still exists, the methods of coercion and force have evolved, at least in the case of Canada as a target, to include means beyond military incursion and little green men (so far).

In its original declaration at Rambouillet in 1975, the G6 (Canada joined the following year), stated: “We are each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere.”

That last bit captures the question ahead of the Kananaskis G7 as to whether the group is better equipped to counter a global war on democracy now fronted by the head of government of one of its own members by suspending that member, or by not suspending that member.

For guidance, we turn to the example of the American people, who, at this writing, are beginning to truly grasp the horror of what happens when Trump returns to the scene of the crime, as he did to the US Capitol last Monday for his improbable second inauguration.

The most helpful thing the international community could do for the American people — indeed, all people — right now would be to respond to Donald Trump as it would, and has, any other unhinged dictator. That’s neither naive nor ignorant of the asymmetry at play; it’s a recognition that if Donald Trump is willing to treat America’s closest neighbour and ally not just like any other country but as a target rather than an asset, that abrogation of our bilateral status quo will be taken at face value.

Charlevoix, with all its memorably chronicled intractability, tactical disruption and mean-tweeting was Canada’s preview. And a Trump II double-down at Kananaskis could make the zombie-plagued G7 portrayed in the recent comedy-horror film Rumours (reviewed for Policy by Sen. Boehm here) look like The Sound of Music.

Policy Editor and Publisher Lisa Van Dusen has served as Washington bureau chief for Sun Media, international writer for Peter Jennings at ABC News, senior writer for Maclean’s and an editor at AP National in New York and UPI in Washington.