Superpower supremacy to saving the planet – the big challenges for the G7

Published

4 years ago

June 9, 2021

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Face to face multi-lateral diplomacy is back. The band is getting back together, but the world has changed since the G7 last met.

Our species and our planet face grave threats and the West’s autocratic rivals have prospered and grown more powerful.

There is a huge amount at stake for those who want the world led by open, democratic, free societies.

COVID vaccines

Coronavirus is the biggest challenge for the G7‘s first face-to-face summit since the pandemic broke out. Until the entire world is vaccinated, we all remain at risk of a new variant sending us back to square one.

Former British ambassador to the US who knows Joe Biden well, Sir Peter Westmacott, told Sky News the president and his allies know this is their number one priority.

“This virus is going to contaminate international business, travel, holiday making, unless we can eradicate it or pretty much eradicate it. It’s not good enough for one or two countries to do really well. So we have to work together on this, just like we have to work together if we’re going to save the planet,” he said.

And if the West fails to lead in vaccinating the world, its claim to global moral leadership could be fatally undermined.

Climate crisis

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the world must apply the lessons learnt in the battle against COVID to tackling the second biggest challenge – climate change.

On the eve of the summit, America’s new president wrote that the US is “back in the chair on the issue of climate change” and “we have an opportunity to deliver ambitious progress that curbs the climate crisis”.

Economic recovery

The G7 needs to resuscitate a global economy weakened by the pandemic.

But even before the virus, millions were so disenchanted with the way things are run economically that they voted for populists like Donald Trump.

The G7 must convince them that the economic integration, globalisation and multilateral institutions that the West has worked so hard to build up are worth their mettle. Otherwise the populists will be back, maybe even Trump himself.

Sir Kim Darroch was British ambassador to the US.

He told Sky News that allies will remain nervous about that for some time to come, saying: “More people voted for Donald Trump [in 2020] than they did in 2016. So there is a way to go for them to be convinced that the American cause has been reset in a stable and consistent way for the foreseeable future.”

China

China is a thorny issue the G7 knows it must handle carefully.

Its trampling of human rights in Hong Kong cannot be ignored. Likewise its treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang – genocidal, or near enough. And its bellicose statements about Taiwan.

If the G7 is serious about what it calls values-based diplomacy, it cannot turn a blind eye to any of these. But it can’t afford to alienate China either. It will be a tricky balancing act.

Former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Sky News the G7 needs to be robust when it comes to the way China is behaving.

“An attack is not necessarily by tanks or aeroplanes,” he said. “On the contrary, you can use economic coercion as part of your aggressiveness. And that’s exactly what China is exercising.”

Mr Rasmussen suggests the free world applies an “all for one, one for all” approach to China’s economic bullying. That way Beijing might think twice about using its size and power to coerce smaller nations economically.

Superpower supremacy

For some there’s nothing less at stake at this summit than who is going to run the world in the years ahead. Democracies or autocracies?

Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned the main challenge in the coming years will be the fight between autocracy and democracy, autocracy primarily represented by China and Russia, and to counter the advancing autocracies there’s the need to rally around basic democratic principles.

If that sounds a bit abstract, don’t underestimate how much that contest could effect us all. “It’s an existential question, it’s a question about who will set the global norms and standards in the future,” he argues.

Giving one example, Mr Rasmussen said: “You can use artificial intelligence to make our lives better and easier, but you can also use artificial intelligence to strengthen surveillance of your people, controlling your people. And if it’s Beijing who sets the international norms and standards for the use of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and data flows, etc, then we would undermine privacy and individual liberty. And that is what is at stake.”

Fortunately for the West, if it can get the individual challenges right, it has a better chance of winning the bigger battle, seeing off the threat from autocracies.

An alliance of democracies that can lead on COVID, lead on climate change and lead a global economic recovery will be a more appealing alternative to autocratic regimes in Moscow and Beijing – and more likely to reclaim its preeminent position. Failure will only strengthen Russia and China.

Hope for global action

What happens in Cornwall will have an impact on all our lives.

The good news is this G7 is better placed than many before to achieve unity and success. Recent summits have been marred by Donald Trump’s impatience with the whole idea of western multilateral democracy.

Before that, the inclusion of Russia as part of the G8 group led inevitably to watered down compromise resolutions.

This G7 includes a reenergised America deeply committed to its principles, and the state of the world gives an urgency and potential for focus we have not seen in a long time.

US

‘Immigration is killing Europe’: Donald Trump issues warning to leaders as he arrives in Scotland

Published

41 mins ago

July 26, 2025

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'Immigration is killing Europe': Donald Trump issues warning to leaders as he arrives in Scotland

Donald Trump has landed in Scotland ahead of a four-day trip, which includes high-level meetings, praising Sir Keir Starmer as “a good man” but also calling illegal migration a “horrible invasion” that was “killing Europe”.

Crowds gathered at Prestwick Airport in Ayrshire amid a major security operation for the US president’s visit.

Mr Trump told reporters: “I like your prime minister. He’s slightly more liberal than I am… but he’s a good man… he got a trade deal done. It’s a good deal for the UK.”

Trump latest: Donald Trump arrives in Scotland

The pair are expected to discuss potential changes to the UK-US trade deal which came into force last month.

Trump left Air Force One to head to Turnberry, one of his Scottish golf courses. Part of the trip will include the opening of another course in Aberdeenshire, billed as “the greatest 36 holes in golf”.

“There’s no place like Turnberry. It’s the best, probably the best course in the world. And I would say Aberdeen is right up there,” the US president said.

“Sean Connery helped get me the [planning] permits. If it weren’t for Sean Connery, we wouldn’t have those great courses,” he added.

During the trip, President Trump will also hold discussions with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is keen to secure a trade deal with the US.

Mr Trump told reporters there was “a good 50-50 chance” of an agreement with the EU but added there were “maybe 20 different” sticking points.

EU diplomats say a deal could result in a broad 15% tariff on EU goods and half of the 30% Trump is threatening to impose by 1 August.

The US president touched on illegal immigration and gave European leaders a stark warning.

“You better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe anymore. You got to get your act together,” he said.

“But you’re allowing it to happen to your countries and you got to stop this horrible invasion that’s happening to Europe. Immigration is killing Europe,” he told reporters.

He was also scathing about the installation of wind turbines across Europe.

“Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries,” he said. “It’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds.”

Domestically, President Trump faces the biggest political crisis of his second term in office over his administration’s handling of files linked to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.

He faced another round of questions after stepping off Air Force One. “You’re making a big thing over something that’s not a big thing. I’m focused on making deals, not on conspiracy theories that you are,” he said.

Mr Trump added that “now’s not the time” to discuss a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s imprisoned accomplice.

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While the president’s visit did attract some enthusiastic flag-waving supporters at Prestwick Airport, he is also likely to trigger a number of protests, prompting Police Scotland to call in support from other forces in the UK.

The Stop Trump Scotland group has planned demonstrations on Saturday in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dumfries.

About 70% of Scots have an unfavourable opinion of Trump, while 18% have a positive opinion, an Ipsos poll in March found.

President Trump is staying at his Turnberry property on Scotland’s west coast this weekend, before travelling to Aberdeenshire on Monday, where he will open a second 18-hole course.

He is due to return to the UK in September for a state visit hosted by the King – the first world leader in modern times to undertake two UK state visits.

US

Trump hopes to escape Epstein controversy, but story risks following him to Scotland

Published

19 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Trump hopes to escape Epstein controversy, but story risks following him to Scotland

I knew Donald Trump when he was nothing.

Nothing like he is today, to be precise.

It was the 18 April 2006, and he had landed by helicopter at St Andrew’s, on his way to survey a stretch of Aberdeenshire coastline he was going to turn into a golf course.

He duly delivered and “Trump International” is a stunning addition to Scotland’s golfing real estate, alongside his other course at Turnberry.

Back in 2006, Trump was big time and big news.

He was the brand built on property and showbiz and, upon arrival, the star of TV’s The Apprentice breezed his way through our interview, obliging us by pointing down the barrel of the camera and delivering his trademark “you’re fired”.

We talked investment, Scottish roots and some local objections to the golf course.

I said it was all a bit like the film Local Hero, which likened him to the rich guy played by Burt Lancaster and he seemed happy enough.

Innocent times.

Fast forward 20 years to President Trump and we are braced for his latest return ‘home’. For this son of Scotland (his mother is from the Isle of Lewis), it’s a homecoming from hell. Hellish on security logistics, at least.

You might think a trip to the old country would carry an element of triumph, wrapped in a nation’s pride. He’s the prodigal who made president, after all – think Biden, Ireland, and the rock star welcome rolled out there for one of their own.

Not so for President Trump. The dynamic’s different with the Donald – the heartland he’ll visit isn’t loved up, it’s locked down. Same as it ever was, whenever he lands in Scotland.

Hundreds of extra police officers have been drafted from around the country to hermetically seal his golf courses in Turnberry and Aberdeenshire. A private trip in two very public settings demands a huge security operation, complicated by an army of protestors mobilising for what they’re calling a “carnival of resistance”.

Demonstrations are planned over a range of causes – organisers cite “threats” to democracy, climate, the global economy and more.

There is no cause untouched by a president of the US and none forgotten by this weekend’s protests.

Scotland leans left of Donald Trump, and critics will lean into an effort to let him know.

It’s an awkward setting for a charm offensive by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney.

As the biggest show in politics rolls into town, they will polish the script on trade negotiations, wary of a president distracted, unpredictable and prone to changing the plot.

His distraction, of course, is the political drama back home.

Trump will welcome a weekend under the radar as an opportunity to escape the Jeffrey Epstein controversy, but there’s every chance the story will travel with him.

Daily efforts to steer the media away from the scandal haven’t stemmed the flow of persistent enquiry and revelations that cement Trump’s relationship with Epstein in the public consciousness, and so further raise questions of cover-up.

US

Snipers, Secret Service sweeps and a personal chef on standby: Scotland awaits Trump’s arrival

Published

19 hours ago

July 25, 2025

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Snipers, Secret Service sweeps and a personal chef on standby: Scotland awaits Trump's arrival

Donald Trump likes a wall. And now he has his very own 15ft-high metal barrier creating a fortress as he tees off for a weekend of politics, play and precision in Scotland.

An almost surreal contrast now exists in the tiny Ayrshire village of Turnberry.

On one side, the stunning coastline and luxury hotel that bears the president’s name. And on the other, an armed buffer zone with sniper teams and road checkpoints.

This visit is unlike those that have gone before.

The threat level and associated security on display is unprecedented following the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in the US.

“It would be inappropriate for me to plan an operation and not bear in mind what has happened,” the senior officer in charge of this weekend’s policing efforts told me.

Turnberry, and its population of about 200 people, have this week witnessed a never-ending stream of Army trucks, terrorist sweeps, road checkpoints, airspace restrictions, sniper positions being erected and Secret Service agents roaming around.

It is the most extensive security deployment in Scotland since the death of the late Queen in 2022.

It is estimated around 5,000 officers will be on the streets, with teams coming from across the UK to assist.

The spectacle primarily centres on Donald Trump coming to play golf before the arrival of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for talks, likely on Monday.

The president, whose mother was born on the Scottish island of Lewis, is then scheduled to travel to his Aberdeenshire resort where a new golf course is set to open.

‘Trump is a decent boss’

Stephanie Campbell and Leanne Maxwell live in Turnberry and used to work at the Trump-owned resort, like many other locals.

The pair told Sky News the very first lesson staff at the resort are given is not in fine service or guest etiquette, but in how to respond to a bomb threat.

It is claimed there are posters above the landline phones in the hotel with instructions on the worst-case scenario.

Stephanie told Sky News: “I had no issues working for him, he is a really decent boss.

“The last time he came there was an element of excitement, I think this time there comes with an added element of concern.

“It brings a lot higher threats and security and it’s much more difficult for everybody in the area.”

Echoing her concerns, Leanne told Sky News: “Security is obviously being bumped up. It’s quite worrying. He’s quite a man, ain’t he?”

Sweeps of the rooms are carried out by US Secret Service agents after housekeeping staff complete their duties and Trump’s meals, they say, are prepared by a personal chef to avoid the risk of poisoning.

To the outside world, these measures seem standard for a US president. But to those who live in Turnberry, it’s far from normal when they have a date with the commander-in-chief.

Awkward encounters

Prestwick Airport has become something of an American airbase in recent days.

The infamous armoured limousine, known as “The Beast”, has been spotted being wheeled out of a US military plane as the presidential motorcade prepares for his arrival tonight.

Greeting the president at the doors of Air Force One will be the secretary of state for Scotland, Ian Murray, who previously supported a motion alleging Trump was guilty of “misogynism, racism and xenophobia”.

Another awkward encounter could come in the form of Scottish First Minister John Swinney’s showdown with Mr Trump next week.

The SNP leader, who publicly backed Kamala Harris in the presidential race, called for September’s state visit to be scrapped after the Ukrainian president’s visit to the White House descended into a shouting match live on TV earlier this year.

Demonstrations are planned throughout the weekend, with marches and protests announced in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Kirsty Haigh, from Scotland Against Trump, claims the president uses Scotland to “cleanse his image” and he should not be able to use the country as an “escape” from his views.

She told Sky News: “He should not be welcomed by us, by our leaders.

“We want to see a Scotland that is very different than [the] America that’s being created.”