Trump left G7 early partly because of Macron and Zelensky, now NATO is cutting the summit short – FT
US President Donald Trump's decision to leave the G7 summit on the first day was partly due to his irritation with French leader Emmanuel Macron and his lack of interest in meeting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now NATO has cut short the upcoming summit in The Hague to avoid a repeat of this situation, the Financial Times reports, citing its own sources.
Trump explained his departure from the G7 by saying that he needed to return to Washington to deal with the conflict between Israel and Iran. At the same time, people familiar with the negotiations told the FT that the US president's decision was partly due to irritation with Macron: during the trip to the summit, he visited Greenland, which the US leader claims.
Also, the interlocutors claim, the premature departure was due to Trump's lack of interest in the meeting with Zelenskyy, which was supposed to take place on the second day of the summit.
Now, NATO has decided to reduce the upcoming leaders' summit to a single 2.5-hour working session, bringing together 32 leaders from the alliance to discuss increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP, the amount Trump is demanding from allies.
The decision to shorten the program was made to prevent Trump from getting bored and leaving early, explained three media sources briefed on the summit preparations.
- President Zelensky reported that during the G7 he hopes to discuss with Trump the possibility of purchasing the next package of US military aid, but due to the departure of the US leader on June 16, the meeting did not take place.
- CBS News sources later reported that the Ukrainian president cut short his visit to the summit after the deadly bombing of Kyiv on the night of June 17 and because of Trump's decision to leave the event early.
- An AFP source in Zelenskyy's office said that the Ukrainian leader plans to personally participate in the NATO summit, which will be held on June 24-25 in The Hague.