Well, the good news is that US President Trump didn’t blow up Biarritz by storming out in a fury as he did at last year’s G7 summit in Canada after accusing President Justin Trudeau of dishonesty.
But Trump may want to nuke Canada after Twitter went mad yesterday over ‘that kiss’ between his stunning wife, Melania, and President Justin Trudeau.
The kiss went viral, and you can see why. It’s a wonderful slice of history, the photographer catching sensationally the fraction of a second that Melania went to kiss Trudeau on the cheek. The trouble is it looks as Melania is diving in for a full on smacker on the lips. Oh to be a fly on Air Force One as the couple head back to Washington.
Yet having kisses in the headlines for the G7 finale has to be better than another outbreak of Trumpian trade hostilities or, indeed, sanctions. Melanie wasn’t the only one caught in flagrante: Trump closing his eyes, went for serious pursed lips wiping the cheek of German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, ( eyes open and smiling) and Brigitte Macron, the President’s wife, standing tippy toe in her vertiginous high heels for a smooch with Trump’s cheeks, no doubt ordered as part of her husband’s schmaltzy charm offensive.
The only blip is the supposed endorsement by Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, of a Facebook post criticising France’s first lady, for her looks. Not something to be considered lightly for a French woman of a certain age. This seems like a case of Bolsonaro’s revenge for Macron having put the fires ravaging the Amazon’s forest at the top of G7 talks. The Brazilian president didn’t like this one bit, accusing his French counterpart of a ‘colonialist mentality.’
Other than this hopefully overheated spat, it’s fair to say that President Macron deserves praise as host for his handling of this summit which was a hit, despite a frosty start. As you would expect, Macron needed to show that France is still one of the world’s greatest of nations but also to prove President Putin wrong in his recent assertion that the ‘G7’ doesn’t exist. Or at least, what he meant to say, it doesn’t exist without him – Russia was expelled after the Ukrainian sortie and wants back.
Trump, who usually hates these big show-stoppers, was on surprisingly best behaviour. After a little early petulance, he made big efforts to proclaim that he was getting on just fine with the G7 leaders and that anything but that was ‘fake news.’
He proved it. The US President has already offered an olive branch to China on trade talks after days of mounting tensions and – thanks to Macron pulling the Iranian foreign minister out of a hat as the surprise G7 guest – says he’s open to diplomacy with Iran.
Maybe there is something to be said after all for seaside air having more negatively charged hydrogen ions which are mood-altering as they lift serotonin levels. Trump went on to describe Chinese President Xi Jinping as a great leader, that the prospect of talks was positive and that the world can be great for everyone.
While the US president was initially cagey about starting new talks with Iran over a nuclear deal, he later emphasised that the US was not looking for regime change but “we’re looking to make Iran rich again, let them be rich, let them do well.” Tehran will like that.
And what about Boris Johnson? How did he do in his first big international outing since becoming Prime Minister? Even his many foes would say it wasn’t a bad innings. There were no further ructions on the EU front. Au contraire. Relations – even with Donald Tusk, European Council president, were calmer. Whether its the calm before the storm, who knows.
But Johnson did as well as anyone could in handling Trump’s fulsome praise – always a Catch 22 awkward problem for him – but seems to have secured the much hoped for promise of a UK-US trade deal. Cleverly, one without the NHS attached. There will be other big prizes though, that the US will want. Of that we can be sure. Financial services will be in the trade-off.
Much of the tricky stuff took place behind the scenes at the Hotel du Palais rather than for the cameras: trade wars are easier than solving word inequality or climate change – supposedly the top of the agenda. That’s for a rainy day. The Americans and the French appear to have reached an accord on what could have been explosive: the French threat to impose a 3% levy on Amazon and Google and the other techies above a certain size.
In retaliation, Trump had made his own threats for a separate tax on French wine imports but now officials are working on a compromise: that France will repay companies between its tax one being drawn up by the OECD. There was lots of agreement on the big issues of the day on inequality, climate change and oceans but no final communique, which is just as well as they are usually forgotten a day later.
In short, the Biarritz summit was far smoother that anyone could have hoped for. It’s not a stretch to suggest this G7 meeting may have set a new tone for the months of wrangling that lie ahead. Macron even managed to keep the yellow vests relatively quiet for the weekend. For now at least. And all sealed with a kiss.