Trump’s tariffs creating ‘tensions’ among G7 ahead of summit: Champagne

The growing impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs is creating “tensions” among members of the G7 heading into a critical summit in Canada next month, the federal finance minister says.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem are chairing three days of meetings with top finance officials from the world’s largest economies in Banff, Alta., this week. The talks are expected to focus on the war in Ukraine and artificial intelligence, and how the G7 members can work together to grow the global economy.

However, Trump’s aggressive trade policies are likely to dominate the proceedings, and could even impact what members can feasibly agree to.

“There’s no doubt that around the table, you need to find unity, but at the same time, it’s true that the tariffs are creating tensions amongst the different partners,” Champagne told Global News in an interview from Calgary on Tuesday.

“Everyone understands that the fiscal capacity of countries is more constrained coming out of COVID. We have big things to do with respect to defence, with respect to infrastructure, with respect to housing.”

He continued: “So my mission as the chair is really to make sure that we can work together, remove the uncertainty that we’re seeing, the instability we’ve seen in the market, and focus on growth measures that are going to be beneficial for all of us.”

Other G7 finance officials have expressed their intention to resolve trade disputes with the U.S. as quickly as possible ahead of this week’s meetings.

“Tariffs and uncertainties are a burden on our economy and therefore also on job security,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said in Berlin on Tuesday before leaving for Canada.