President Trump on Saturday doubled down on his calls for Russia to be reinstated to the G-7 group of nations, saying that the group would be more meaningful if that country could be brought back into the fold.

“I would rather see Russia in the G-8, as opposed to the G-7. I would say that the G-8 is a more meaningful group than the G-7, absolutely,” he told reporters as he left the summit in Canada.

He later said that Russia’s return to the group would be “an asset” and that it would be a good move for peace in the world.

“We’re not looking to play games,” he said.

Trump said Friday that Russia should be a part of the talks — a move that was likely to find little agreement among the group. Russia was expelled from the group — which now includes France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. — following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

When Trump was pressed about the annexation of Crimea, he placed the blame on President Barack Obama for failing to handle the situation.

“He was the one who let Crimea get away — that was during his administration,” he said, adding, “Crimea was let go during the Obama administration and Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea. I may have had a much different attitude.”

Trump’s call for Russia to be included did gain some support, however, in the form of new populist Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who tweeted that it was “in the interests of everyone” for Russia to be included once again.

Trump also told reporters Saturday that he has not spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin in some time.

Russia remains a thorny topic in the U.S., where investigators have been looking into how it may have sought to influence the 2016 election.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> (CNN) President Donald Trump on Saturday doubled down on his call for Russia to be readmitted into the G7 and blamed his predecessor for Russia's aggression in Crimea.

"I think it would be an asset to have Russia back in," Trump said during an impromptu press conference at the summit. "I think it would be good for the world. I think it would be good for Russia. I think it would be good the United States. I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7. I think the G8 would be better."

Russia was suspended from the group -- then known as the G8 -- in 2014 after the majority of member countries allied against its annexation of Crimea. It was the first violation of a European country's borders since World War II.

Trump suggested that Russia be allowed back into the global group despite their continued occupation of Crimea.

"I would say that the G8 is a more meaningful group than the G7, absolutely," Trump said. He also blamed former US President Barack Obama for Russia's move into that nation.

Read More </s> President Donald Trump says Russia should be reinstated to the Group of Seven, going against the other countries that ousted Russia in 2014 after its annexation of Crimea. </s> United States President, Donald Trump, has called for an end to Russian expulsion from the Group of Seven leading economies in the world.The President had, on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday, made a case for Russia’s readmission into G-8, which became G-7 following the annexation of Crimea.Russia was expelled from the G-7 four years ago following its role in the Crimean crisis.Washington Post quotes Trump as saying that Russia should be readmitted to the G-7, thereby breaking with other world leaders who have insisted that Moscow remain ostracized following its involvement in the 2014 Crimean crisis.“Now, I love our country. I have been Russia’s worst nightmare … But with that being said, Russia should be in this meeting,” Trump said as he left the White House.“It may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run. … They should let Russia back in,” he added.Trump had tweeted that he was heading to Canada for the annual G-7 summit, where he also hopes to hold talks that will mostly center on the “long time unfair trade practised against the United States.”He said that from there, he would go to Singapore and hold talks with North Korea on Denuclearization.“Won’t be talking about the Russian Witch Hunt Hoax for a while!” he had promised; while informing that he looked forward to straightening out unfair trade deals with the G-7 countries, and that, “if it doesn’t happen, we come out even better!” </s> • President Donald Trump reportedly derailed a major meeting with world leaders at the annual Group of Seven summit on Saturday evening after he insisted that Russia should be readmitted to the G7.
• Trump’s comments initiated a discussion at the dinner about “whether the leaders should assign any special weight to being a democracy,” The Washington Post reported. While most of the world leaders staunchly believed they should, Trump didn’t.
• “The consequence is the same as if one of the participants is a dictator,” an official told The Post. “No community of like-minded leaders who are pulling together.”
• Trump on Monday announced that he would invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to next year’s summit.
• Russia was expelled from the then-G8 in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which violated international laws and agreements.

President Donald Trump derailed a major meeting with world leaders at the annual Group of Seven summit on Saturday evening after he insisted that Russia should be re-invited to the international gathering, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The president interrupted talks of the fires in the Amazon and Iran’s nuclear capacity by advocating for Russia to be readmitted to the gathering of industrialized nations at a dinner in Biarritz, France on Saturday night.

Russia was expelled from the then-G8 in 2014 over its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, which violated international laws and agreements.

Trump’s comments initiated a discussion at the dinner about “whether the leaders should assign any special weight to being a democracy,” The Post reported. While most of the world leaders staunchly believed they should, Trump didn’t.

A senior official at the meeting told The Post that Trump crossed his arms and appeared to take a more physically combative stance as multiple leaders rejected his comments.

“The consequence is the same as if one of the participants is a dictator,” an official told The Post. “No community of like-minded leaders who are pulling together.”

Read more: Trump is pushing to let Russia re-join the G7, and the White House claims that France approves

Trump may be able to bring Putin back to the G7 as next year’s host

Officials said that at least two of the leaders present, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Italy’s acting prime minister Giuseppe Conte, did not push back against Trump’s position.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised French President Emmanuel Macron’s performance at the dinner on Sunday morning. “You did very well there last night. My God, that was a difficult one,” Johnson said, according to The Post.

Trump on Monday announced that he would invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to next year’s summit.

“Would I invite him? I would certainly invite him,” he told reporters. “Whether or not he could come, psychologically, I think that’s a tough thing for him to do,” because Putin is “a proud person.”

The US will host next year’s G7 gathering, so Trump may have the power to unilaterally re-invite Putin to the meeting.

Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg want everyone to fly less to fight climate change. Germany and Sweden are already embracing the ‘flight shame’ movement.

Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other leaders have made clear that they won’t consider supporting Russia’s readmittance unless the country helps promote peace in Ukraine.

“One year ago, in Canada, President Trump suggested reinviting Russia to the G-7, stating openly that Crimea’s annexation by Russia was partially justified. And that we should accept this fact. Under no condition can we agree with this logic,” European Council President Donald Tusk told reporters over the weekend.

The president argued last week that it doesn’t make sense to exclude Russia – and its leader President Vladimir Putin – from the gathering “because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia.”

Trump hasn’t mentioned Crimea or suggested that Russia would need to make any concessions in order to rejoin the group as part of his recent push. Instead, Trump has repeatedly blamed President Barack Obama for being “outsmarted” by Russia and then demanding the country’s exclusion. </s> Trump calls for Russia, ousted from group of leading industrial nations after annexing Crimea, to be reinstated

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump calls for Russia, ousted from group of leading industrial nations after annexing Crimea, to be reinstated. </s> LA MALBAIE, Que. — Donald Trump’s pitch to bring Russia back into the G7 has landed with a thud at the summit hosted by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Quebec.

Trump prefaced his arrival in Canada on Friday with a sharp jab at the G7 by calling for Russia’s reinstatement — creating a chasm with his allies on one of their key security concerns.

Prior to boarding Air Force One, the U.S. president took to Twitter to deride Canada and Europe on a familiar topic: what he sees as their unfair trade practices.

But it was Trump’s pre-departure remarks on Russia that moved him squarely offside with most of his fellow G7 leaders, including Trudeau, on one of their most serious, shared international security concerns.

“Why are we having a meeting without Russia in the meeting?” Trump said at the White House just before departing.

“They should let Russia come back in because we should have Russia at the negotiating table.”

In 2014, the then-G8 kicked Russia out of the club of powerful countries. Canada and its Western allies oppose the adventurism of Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Kremlin’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and for the ongoing fight between Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s east.

Canada, for one, is not receptive to the idea of bringing Russia back in.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland cited reasons why the G7 yanked Russia’s invitation to the club, including its invasion of Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the recent chemical weapon attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter in the British town of Salisbury.

Freeland said Russia has made it clear with actions like these that it has no interest in following the rules of Western democracies, like those in the G7.

“Canada’s position is absolutely clear that there are no grounds whatsoever for bringing Russia, with its current behaviour, back into the G7,” Freeland told reporters at the summit site in La Malbaie, Que.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also expressed her opposition.

“We’ve always been clear that we should engage with Russia, but the phrase I’ve used is ‘engage but beware’,” May told Sky News.

“And let’s remember why the G8 became the G7 — it was because Russia illegally annexed Crimea, and before any conversations of this sort can happen, we have to ensure that Russia is actually mending its ways and taking a different route.”

Trump’s idea, however, did attract some G7 support Friday. Italy’s new populist prime minister sowed further uncertainty by tweeting his support for Trump’s position on Russia.

For their part, the Russians didn’t appear interested in Trump’s offer.

The Russian news agency Sputnik reported Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov’s response to Trump’s tweet: “Russia is focused on other formats, apart from the G7.”

But Trump’s musings on Russia throw into question a declaration that the G7 is considering in Charlevoix that would condemn meddling in western elections — a statement that would have been aimed squarely at Russia.

For the past week, it was an open question in Ottawa whether Trump would actually show up, after he imposed heavy steel and aluminum tariffs against the other G7 members. The G7 leaders were planning to press him to lift those duties in their opening sessions Friday.

Those plans, as well as Trudeau’s carefully crafted agenda — months in making —were thrown into disarray even before Trump stepped off his plane in Bagotville, Que., making his debut on Canadian soil.

After arriving at the summit site, Trump greeted Trudeau and Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on the hotel’s sweeping lawn, which overlooks the mighty St. Lawrence River.

The leaders shook hands, chatted a little bit, posed for photos and then walked off — just the two of them — along a path that led around the side of the hotel.

The men showed no obvious signs of hard feelings on Friday, even though they had exchanged tough words publicly over their differences on trade issues.

In railing against Canadian trade policies, Trump accused Trudeau of being “indignant” on Twitter. Trudeau has called Trump’s tariffs “insulting.”

On Trump’s Russia remark earlier Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fuelled the disharmony amongst the G7 by tweeting his support for the U.S. president’s position.

“I agree with the President @realDonaldTrump: Russia should go back into the G-8. In the interest of all.”

Conte, who heads a right-wing populist party, was making his international debut after he was appointed last week as a compromise candidate for prime minister to break a political deadlock since Italy’s March national election.

European Council President Donald Tusk raised questions about Conte’s commitment to that idea. He said he has met Conte and considers his position on Russia to be completely in-line with the common European line, which considers Russia’s breach of its western border to be an illegal act.

Tusk expressed broader concern about Trump’s opposition to the international rules-based order, because it ”is being challenged, quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.”

The European Union is also a full member of the G7, so Tusk is part of the leaders’ meetings with Trump, where they are trying to persuade the president to stop attacking multilateralism.

“We will not stop trying to convince our American friends and President Trump that undermining this order makes no sense at all because it would only play into the hands of those who seek a new post-West order where liberal democracy and fundamental freedoms would cease to exist,” said Tusk.

Despite the current G7 turmoil, Tusk said more unites the group than divides it.

“It is far too early for our adversaries and enemies to celebrate.”

Trudeau is hosting the world’s most powerful countries at the two-day summit in La Malbaie, in Quebec’s Charlevoix region, Trump is not expected to stay until the end.

He is set to depart before Saturday’s final session on climate change and fly to Singapore for a much-anticipated summit with the leader of North Korea. </s> President Donald Trump is hosting Italy's new prime minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House.

The two met for the first time at the Group of Seven summit in Quebec, Canada back in June. President Trump raised eyebrows when he told reporters that Russia should be a part of the group. While many leaders voiced their concerns with the idea, Conte backed Trump's call to readmit Russia to the G-7.

Conte, a political outsider, was chosen as prime minister by his peers in parliament and appointed by the Italian president, rather than being elected. No party won a majority of the vote in the election, forcing parties to form a coalition government.

USA TODAY NETWORK will provide live coverage of the joint presser in the player above. </s> US president Donald Trump has hit out at the European Union and Canada as he departed Washington for the G7 summit in Canada, calling on Russia to be invited to rejoin the group of advanced industrisalised nations.

In extensive comments to journalists as he prepared to board Air Force One, Mr Trump said Russia – which was expelled from the group following its incursion into Ukraine in 2014 and annexation of Crimea – should be readmitted to the group.

“Russia should be in this meeting. Whether you like it or not and it may not be politically correct, but we have a world to run. They threw Russia out, they should let Russia back in,” he said in comments that are likely to infuriate America’s European allies, who took a strong stance against Russia over its annexation of Crimea.

The G7 meeting, which begins in the small village of Charlevoix on Friday, is likely to be dominated by trade issues, following Washington’s decision to impose steel and aluminium tariffs on imports and its ongoing efforts to renegotiate Nafta – the free trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“All of these countries have been taking advantage of us. We have to straighten it out. We have massive trade deficits with almost every country,” Mr Trump said as he departed Washington.

His comments followed a series of early-morning tweets. “Looking forward to straightening out unfair Trade Deals with the G-7 countries. If it doesn’t happen, we come out even better!” Mr Trump tweeted on Friday.

This year’s annual G7 gathering takes place against a background of deteriorating relations between the United States and the other six members.

In a tweet on Thursday, French president Emanuel Macron said: “The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be. Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.”

“Please tell [Canadian] Prime Minister [Justin] Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the US massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers,” the US president wrote. “The EU trade surplus with the US is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out.”

Among Mr Trump’s first engagements on arrival in Quebec is a bilateral meeting with the French president. Just last month the two spent two days together in Washington when the Donald and Melania Trump welcomed Mr Macron and his wife, Brigitte, on an official state visit.

Washington’s decision not to extend a waiver that had been granted to the EU, Canada and Mexico on steel and aluminium imports on June 1st, has annoyed European allies, who have threatened reciprocal measures.

Mr Trump is expected to leave the summit early, raising speculation that he may not sign the joint communique that is typically the most immediate and material outcomes of global summits.

He will fly directly from Canada to Singapore for next Tuesday’s historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The US president also told reporters that he was considering pardons for 3,000 people, including Muhammed Ali. It follows his decision this week to commute the life sentence of Alice Johnson, a grandmother who was convicted of a drugs offence in 1996, following an intervention by celebrity Kim Kardashian West.
U.S. President Donald Trump calls for Russia, which was suspended from the group after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, to be reinstated in the group; a call supported by the Prime Minister of Italy Giuseppe Conte, and rejected by most other G7 leaders.