How can the G7 ensure it remains geopolitically relevant?
The Big Ask | No. 25.2025
On 16th and 17th June, the 51st Group of Seven (G7) summit was held in Kananaskis, Canada. Bringing together the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, the G7 is a powerful multilateral grouping on the global stage which promotes a free and open international order in line with its members’ liberal, democratic values.
Despite its common values and accumulative global power, criticism has been levelled against the G7, including regarding its effectiveness and exclusion of countries in the so-called ‘Global South’. With other groupings – such as the Group of 20 (G20) and the BRICS+– encompassing a wider geographical and geopolitical scope, questions arise as to the continued international significance of the G7. Continuing with the theme of focusing on Britain’s allies and partners, as in last week’s Big Ask, for this week, we asked four experts: How can the G7 ensure it remains geopolitically relevant?
Lecturer in International Politics, University of Oxford and Korea Foundation Fellow, Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House
Today’s world of ‘polycrisis’ – referring to multiple, simultaneously occurring geopolitical crises, has witnessed, inter alia, the combining of theatres of conflict, most evidently between the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. This interconnectedness of regional theatres and the far-reaching consequences of conflict and tensions in the Indo-Pacific, coupled with the continued salience of great power politics, will all prevent the G7 from fading into irrelevance in the future.
The question of G7 expansion, not least to include South Korea, will continue to be asked, particularly in relation to Japan’s presence as a member of the group. That South Korea continues to be invited to G7 summits as a non-member, however, underscores how the group offers a fruitful venue for Indo-Pacific states to engage in sideline talks with the US, whether vis-à-vis lowering tariffs imposed by America or finding common ground on regional security issues, the implications of which go far beyond the Indo-Pacific region. As competition intensifies between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the prospect of a dual contingency in East Asia – involving both Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula – will increasingly become not just a concern of the US, but also of the other six G7 members. The relevance of the G7 is here to stay.
Senior Vice President of National Security and Intelligence Programmes, Centre for the Study of the Presidency and Congress
The key to the G7’s continued geopolitical relevance lies in near-term expectation management, and a longer-term shift towards results rather than process. The early departure of Donald Trump, President of the US, from this year’s summit was certainly taken as a snub, but that he did or that there was a possibility he could (especially given the strategic landscape in the Middle East), should not have come as a surprise. Trump prefers bilateralism and transactional relationships to multilateralism and diplomatic processes, and he is unlikely to change before the end of his term.
There were nonetheless ‘wins’ at this year’s summit: an agreement between Trump and Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to implement last month’s trade agreement, and continued tariffs discussions with Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.
For success at next year’s summit in Évian-les-Bains, focusing on agreements and deals rather than diplomatic protocol will yield better results for, and with, the Trump administration. It is also premature to suggest, however, that a G6+ or some other fora without the US is necessary. To borrow from Voltaire, ‘If the G7 did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it’. The informal gathering should, ultimately, look more to collective action and less to diplomatic signaling for the future. Ironically, this could well emerge as an unexpected positive legacy of Trump’s unconventional approach to engagement.
Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)
Expectations for the G7 summit probably could not have been lower. In advance of the meeting, most analysts would have predicted that there would be no joint communiqué, no common statement on Ukraine and some sort of blow-up involving Trump. That no major controversy erupted at the summit probably means it was a success.
For Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, the summit can be looked back upon with some satisfaction. Trump (understandably) departed early in view of the developing conflict between Iran and Israel, but not before agreeing in principle with Carney that a new bilateral US-Canada trade agreement should come within the next several weeks. Under Carney’s pragmatic leadership of the event, the entire G7 managed to agree to deepen cooperation in several areas, most notably to counter transnational crime and repression. As ever, whether there will be serious follow-through on such declarations of intent remains to be seen.
Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, and Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Analysis Study Group, University of Cambridge
The short answer is that the G7 can’t remain relevant. The G7 is a group comprising America and its six most powerful allies, which was established during the Cold War to promote a set of interests which were common to them all. Like other groupings from the Cold War era, the G7 survived the collapse of communism – and the problem of Russia’s membership, until it was expelled in 2014 – held together by a shared commitment among its members to spreading liberal democracy and global capitalism. However, as the summit in Kananaskis suggests, if its members’ interests have diverged to the point where the US no longer sees the G7 as a useful vehicle, then it has no obvious reason to exist.
That doesn’t mean it will collapse, of course. International organisations often stagger on long after they’ve lost their raison d’être because it is in nobody’s interests to pull the plug on them. However, with the US focused on an ‘America First’ agenda, in which it makes decisions more independently from allies, the G7 will have to narrow its agenda to the specific issues where there is a confluence of interests between the US and its various other members, while the business of government and international relations moves elsewhere – either to national capitals or to other regional groupings, of which the G20 is the most obvious.
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