By Natalie Andrews, Vipal Monga and Kim Mackrael

CALGARY, Alberta -- President Trump has pushed to annex Canada, called its former prime minister the governor of the 51st state and imposed stiff tariffs on Canadian imports, perplexing and perturbing the country's leaders and citizens.

This week, Trump will bring his disruptive brand of politics to Canadian soil.

The president is set to arrive in the Canadian Rockies on Sunday for a meeting of Group of Seven leaders that is expected to focus on trade, the war in Ukraine and unrest in the Middle East. The meeting will be an early test of whether U.S. allies can reach consensus with the Trump administration despite deepening disagreements.

In a sign of how difficult it could be to present a united front, the summit isn't expected to produce a single joint leaders' statement, or communiqué, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, the leaders will likely agree to separate statements on topics that Canada has identified as priorities, such as fighting foreign interference in elections and transnational crime and securing supply chains for critical minerals.

Much of the discussion between the G-7 leaders is expected to focus on trade. That could prove thorny for U.S. allies, who will seek to make the case for an open, rules-based global economy without antagonizing Trump over the upheaval that his administration's tariffs have caused.

Trump tends to approach multilateral meetings with skepticism. "He does not view these organizations as ways to deepen and expand American power and influence," said Rachel Rizzo, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Europe Center. "He sees these fora as constraining America, and I think that's something to remember as he goes into this."

Canadian officials said newly elected leader Mark Carney hopes to avoid diplomatic dust-ups at the summit and present a united front for the world's largest economies -- a difficult task in light of Trump's trade wars and his threats to pull U.S. support from Ukraine.

The U.S.-Canada relationship has become more complicated since Trump began routinely suggesting that Canada should join the U.S. "The atmosphere is one of uncertainty and unpredictability and a bit of tension," said Beth Burke, chief executive of the Canadian American Business Council.

Last year, Trump began referring to Canada as the 51st state and mocking then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by calling him governor. Many Canadians bristled at the idea of U.S. annexation. Trudeau put the odds of that happening at "a snowball's chance in hell." During an Oval Office meeting last month, Carney told Trump that Canada isn't for sale. The U.S. president shot back, "Never say never."

Trump has toned down his rhetoric since Carney became prime minister, but just last month he offered to include Canada in his Golden Dome missile-defense project at no cost if the country agreed to become part of the U.S. Otherwise, he said, Canada would have to pay $61 billion for protection under the project.

The G-7 marks an international coming-out party for Carney, who won a Canadian election in April. The former governor of the Canadian and U.K. central banks has been trying to strengthen Canada's ties to traditional allies such as the U.K. and France. He is also working to rebuild relations with India after they reached a low point when Trudeau publicly accused Indian government officials of masterminding the assassination of a Sikh activist in Canada.

Carney invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the summit, bucking opponents who felt the gesture was inappropriate in light of a continuing assassination probe.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, is also set to attend. He and Trump clashed in February in the Oval Office.

European leaders are eager to keep the Trump administration engaged in supporting Ukraine and hope to use the G-7 to persuade the U.S. to support more sanctions against Russia, though the security focus is likely to shift to the Middle East after Israel began strikes on Iran last week. European officials will argue that the conflict is linked to the Ukraine war because Iran has been supporting Russia by providing drones and ballistic missiles.

"It changes the agenda of what's getting discussed in the security session," said Kelly Ann Shaw, who was the U.S.'s lead negotiator at G-7 and G-20 summits during Trump's first term. "While the focus may have been predominantly on Ukraine and Russia, the leaders inevitably will be focused on Iran and Israel."

Central to Carney's agenda: reaching a trade deal with the U.S. -- and potentially jump-starting a review of a separate U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement ahead of an expected renegotiation of the pact next year. Leaders will also talk about economic security, including their concerns about the flow of low-cost Chinese products, including steel and aluminum, into their markets.

"The best-case scenario, in my mind, coming out of this, is that there's no real blowups coming out of the back end," said Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council.

Write to Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com, Vipal Monga at vipal.monga@wsj.com and Kim Mackrael at kim.mackrael@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 15, 2025 05:00 ET (09:00 GMT)

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