Trade, Security and a Defiant Lula: G7 Summit Opens Amid East-West Strains

When the Group of Seven convenes in the French Alpine town of Évian-les-Bains on 15 June, the gathering will be far more than a routine alignment of the world’s richest democracies. Host President Emmanuel Macron has invited not only Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for a morning session on Tuesday dedicated to shoring up support for Kyiv, but also the leaders of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to join a working discussion on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes. Russian media, citing Macron’s press conference in Paris, reported that the session would examine the economic impact of what Moscow termed “the war of the United States and Israel against Iran,” a framing absent from Western briefings but indicative of the charged geopolitical atmosphere surrounding the summit.

Viewed from Brasília, the gathering is an opportunity to hit back at Washington’s trade offensive. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva declared on 10 June that Brazil would not accept new US tariffs “out of dignity and respect for Brazilian workers,” after the Trump administration proposed a 25 percent levy and the US Trade Representative recommended punitive measures targeting even the popular PIX instant payment system, ethanol, and deforestation policies. Lula will carry those grievances to the G7, where Brazilian diplomats are working to secure a bilateral meeting with Donald Trump to unlock negotiations. The president also intends to raise the European Union’s looming ban on Brazilian beef from September, with a possible encounter with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in mind.

In parallel, New Delhi is quietly managing a delicate bilateral moment. Indian and US officials remain in contact over a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump on the summit’s margins, which would be their first face-to-face encounter since a sharp falling-out over Pakistan a year ago. Both sides see the Évian sidelines as a chance to recalibrate relations and push forward a trade deal that has stalled amid mutual recriminations, turning the summit into an impromptu diplomatic repair shop.

For the core G7 members, the meeting is designed to project renewed Western cohesion in an increasingly contested world. The leaders will use the summit to choreograph their approach ahead of the US-hosted G20 in Miami in December, with the relationship with China looming as a central axis of debate. Zelensky’s participation, announced by Macron alongside a recent Ukrainian missile strike on a Russian arms factory far from the front line, is meant to demonstrate continued resolve, though doubts about long-term Western stamina persist among European analysts.

Yet the real test will be whether the formal agenda can accommodate the competing demands of invited rising powers. Lula, attending as a guest for the tenth time, will demand concrete commitments on development aid and a new global governance architecture, framing his resistance to unilateral tariff hikes as a defence of a rules-based trading system. The presence of major Gulf and Asian economies alongside a defiant Brazilian leader underscores a summit that, far from closing ranks, may reveal the widening fracture lines between the West and a restive Global South.