28 May, 2017
"We respect President Trump's choice to reflect further on their engagements around climate change and the Paris accord", Trudeau said.
Canada played a leadership role in pushing for the communique to include the language on fighting protectionism, the Paris Agreement, and in particular for the reference to gender equality being "fundamental to the fulfillment of human rights", according to a federal government source.
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a photo of G7 leaders with African leaders on the last day of the summit on Saturday. The US hasn't decided yet.
A Canadian government official who spoke to reporters about the 30-minute conversation between Trump and Trudeau on the condition of anonymity said that while the two leaders also spoke about global security, they did not discuss intelligence-sharing.
In a striking comment given Trump's support during the campaign for American coal miners, Cohn also said "coal doesn't even really make that much sense anymore as a feedstock".
In a statement, Gary Cohn, one of Trump's senior economic advisors, said the talks in Taormina were having an impact on the USA president.
The six-page final communique from the summit says six of the leaders, including Canada, agreed to stand by their commitment to implement the Paris Agreement.
But he refused to join the consensus on climate change, sending a tweet to say: "I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!" Multiple White House meetings on the matter were delayed in recent weeks, and Trump advisers ultimately said he would not make a decision until after he returns to Washington from a nine-day, five-stop worldwide trip.
"Europe, Canada and Japan stood up today and made a stand, revealing again how far Trump is out of step with the rest of the world on climate change", Jennifer Morgan, Greenpeace's worldwide executive director, said in Sicily.
The United States is the world's biggest carbon emitter after China.
Recounting what they described as successes over the past week, they noted pledges by Arab countries - made during Trump's first stop in Saudi Arabia - to step up their coordination in the fight against terrorism, including a renewed crackdown on militant financing and ending destructive Iranian activity in the region. He put the total at "close to half a trillion" dollars, although the administration initially set it at $380 billion and did not provide details of the agreements. The provision pledges all 28 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members to treat an attack against any of them as an attack against all.
Trump "is isolating the USA from its most important allies and those allies stood strong in the face of backsliding", Heather Coleman, climate director at Oxfam America, said in a statement referring to the Paris Agreement policy of not weakening climate-related commitments over time.
Merkel called the conversation "controversial" while Cohn said it was "robust". "It's a matter of fact that the United States and the president stand firmly behind our Article 5 commitment", McMaster said. But as the opening months of his presidency have shown, Trump can be moved to change his positions and can be heavily influenced by other world leaders. There was no "disagreement" over the accord itself, the official said, but there were "differences" about how to apply it. "What you're asking me to do is tell you what's inside the president's mind".
"I think he's leaning to understand the European position", Cohn said.
When asked why Trump had not held a news conference or spoken at any length with reporters accompanying him on his travels, Cohn said Trump had been working "nonstop".
The G-7 leaders had better luck finding agreement on the other problematic topic at the summit, trade.
Several thousand people are expected to march through Giardini Naxos, the seaside town bordering Taormina, the hill top venue of the G7. Another, calling itself "Women Against Trump", planned to protest what marchers said was the president's "sexism".
One group carried banners objecting to Europe's treatment of migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
