Trump breaks with G-7 to urge Russia return

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said Russia should be allowed back into the G-8 bloc, lobbing
another point of friction into an-already fraught summit with allies in Canada.
“Russia should be in this meeting,” Trump told reporters in Washington as he left the White House to fly to Canada.
“Whether you like it or not, and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run, and in the G-7 which used to be the G-8, they threw Russia out,” he said. “They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”
Trump’s comments threw another wrench into the Group of Seven gathering underway in the scenic Charlevoix region just north of the Maine border. He will miss some of the summit’s second day after speculation he’d cancel his appearance entirely amid public criticism from allies over steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the US in recent weeks. Instead, he appears ready to fire back with his America First mantra.
Trump’s Russia comment won a quick endorsement from Italian PM Giuseppe Conte, who said on Twitter that Russia’s re-admission would be “in everybody’s interest.” The new government in Rome has previously said that sanctions on Russia damaged Italy’s agriculture industry and its design and handicraft sectors.
Russia joined the G-7 in 1998. After its annexation of Crimea, the other seven members shrunk the bloc and effectively kicked Russia out until further notice, starting with a summit in 2014.
“We focus on other formats,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the official Tass news agency in response to Trump’s comments, referring to groups like the G-20. President Vladimir Putin was in China on June 08, where he and President Xi Jinping touted their close ties.
Trump’s gambit may further inflame tensions with other leaders, including British PM Theresa May.
Britain’s relations with Russia are at their worst since the Cold War, following the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English town of Salisbury this year.
After years in which Russia’s wealthy were invited to base themselves in London without questions being asked about how they made their money, the Home Office is reviewing visas.
“We’ve always been clear that we should engage with Russia, but the phrase I’ve
used is engage but beware,” May said.