Donald Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, insisted on Sunday that the president was “willing to talk to any world leader”.
But a day after Trump left a trail of diplomatic chaos from Canada to Singapore, the site of his summit with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, a picture of world leaders apparently confronting Trump dominated reactions to the G7 summit.
The picture was taken by Jesco Denzel, a German government photographer, and released by Steffen Seibert, spokesman for the chancellor, Angela Merkel.
It shows Trump, arms folded and eyes glaring, sitting while around him stand a group of world leaders and their advisers.
Merkel is centre stage, arms planted on a table, with the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, standing to her left, arms folded and a look of resignation on his face.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, stands next to Merkel, partially obscured, with the British prime minister, Theresa May, more obscured still at his right.
To many observers the photograph, a rare glimpse of diplomatic activity not wreathed in smiles and handshakes, seemed both a summation of the effect of Trump’s “America first” foreign policy and the perfect pictorial accompaniment to a tense couple of days in Canada.
Departing Washington on Friday, Trump called for Russia to be readmitted to the G7, four years after it was thrown out over the annexation of Crimea. At a Saturday afternoon press conference in La Malbaie, he blamed Barack Obama for the Russian invasion of…
