Category Archives: G7

French wine-makers hope for G7 detente with Trump over tariffs

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Trump has threatened high tariffs on French wine in response to Macron’s tech tax

French wine-makers are increasingly concerned about Donald Trump’s threats to introduce high tariffs on French wine in retaliation for Emmanuel Macron’s tax on global technology companies, as world leaders gather for the Biarritz G7 summit this weekend.

A new front in Trump’s international trade wars could open up across France’s vineyards, damaging the livelihoods and jobs of small producers, if the US president decides to substantially increase tariffs on French wine as punishment for what he has called the “foolishness” of the new levy on the annual revenues of technology companies.

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Macron thinks he can handle Trump, but G7 will put that to the test

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Trump’s mood is volatile, and the French leader’s approach has had only limited success

Emmanuel Macron reckons he has found the best way of dealing with Donald Trump. It involves acceptance that the US president’s mind will not be changed where a campaign promise is involved. But on everything else – keep talking.

Macron’s method is about to be put to the test once more as Trump arrives on Saturday to join the G7 summit of the world’s major industrialised democracies in Biarritz. So far, the results have been thin at best.

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Every G7 country should have a feminist foreign policy | Emma Watson, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Katja Iversen and Michael Kaufman

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We members of the G7’s Gender Equality Advisory Council are urging countries to ditch archaic and discriminatory laws and promote empowerment

The sheer tenacity of women raising their voices and organising for fundamental change has been, and will continue to be, the driving force for achieving women’s rights and a gender-equal world. Yet we cannot ignore the fundamental role that governments can play in either promoting or thwarting change.

That is why the four of us accepted French president Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to join 32 colleagues to form a G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council. On Sunday, we will present the culmination of our work; a package of recommended laws focused on ending gender-based violence; ensuring inclusive, equitable, and quality health and education; promoting the economic empowerment of women; and combating discrimination, ensuring full gender equality in policies and public life. In each area we point to laws from around the world that illustrate the type of action countries should take.

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G7 leaders wait nervously for Boris Johnson’s debut on the world stage

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As the prime minister heads for the Biarritz summit, he has no relationship with the other governments and very little trust

For weeks things have been quiet in the summer heat. But in recent days the normal diplomatic back-channelling between London, Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Rome has cranked into gear before the G7 meeting in Biarritz of the world’s most advanced economies.

British officials have been liaising with their EU counterparts on how to get on the right side of the trade war between the US and China, tread a diplomatic fine line over the European-backed Iranian nuclear deal opposed by Donald Trump and get the rhetoric right on the precarious situation in Hong Kong in the presence of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “This is a diplomatic quagmire of a G7,” said a European diplomat.

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Raise taxes on firms that harm nature, OECD tells G7 countries

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Report calls for change of priorities and culture to avert catastrophic biodiversity loss

Governments need to ramp up investment in nature restoration and raise the tax burden on companies that degrade wildlife, according to recommendations made to the G7 group of rich nations.

The proposals are part of a growing debate on how to radically change humanity’s relationship with nature in the wake of a new UN mega-report that showed an alarming decline in the Earth’s life-support systems.

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UK has biggest fossil fuel subsidies in the EU, finds commission

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Subsidies for coal, oil and gas are not falling despite EU pledges to tackle climate change

The UK leads the European Union in giving subsidies to fossil fuels, according to a report from the European commission. It found €12bn (£10.5bn) a year in support for fossil fuels in the UK, significantly more than the €8.3bn spent on renewable energy.

The commission report warned that the total subsidies for coal, oil and gas across the EU remained at the same level as 2008. This is despite both the EU and G20 having long pledged to phase out the subsidies, which hamper the rapid transition to clean energy needed to fight climate change.

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