Trump to meet Middle East leaders at G7 summit

• Netanyahu not coming to Trump’s bilateral meetings
• One-on-one session with Zelensky not planned

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet Middle Eastern leaders and attend a working session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the G7 summit next week, senior US administration officials said on Saturday.

The officials said Trump, who is scheduled to travel to Evian, France, for the G7 summit early on Monday, would meet separately with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, France and India, though no bilateral meeting with Zelensky is planned.

A senior US administration official said that Israel’s Netanyahu is not coming to Trump’s bilateral meetings with Middle Eastern leaders at G7.

Trump will participate in a working session on Tuesday with Zelensky and G7 leaders. The meeting comes at a time when Russian advances in Ukraine have slowed and Ukraine seeks more military funding from its allies.

One of the senior US officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity about Trump’s trip, said Russian gains have “more or less stopped”. “We want the war to end as quickly as possible,” the official said.

Trump has had up-and-down relations with Zelensky. No bilateral meeting was planned with Zelensky but the two leaders could meet on the sidelines of the summit, the officials added.

He will speak to a number of European leaders with whom he has squabbled over trade, tariffs, Ukraine and Nato since his return to the White House early in 2025.

Trump planned to raise issues of shared importance with leaders at the summit, including economic growth and development, supply chain resilience, illegal migration and AI, one of the officials said. He also planned to work on boosting resilience in the supply chain for critical minerals needed for advanced technologies.

Before returning to Washington, Trump planned to attend a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday, the officials said.

‘On receiving end’

Meanwhile, Liana Fix, an associate fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP ahead of the summit, which will bring the United States face-to-face with France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, “all of these countries’ leaders have been on the receiving end of Trump’s trade pressure or diplomatic intimidation, with the exception of Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, for whom he has expressed particular fondness.”

Neither growing unpopularity that could cost Trump control of Congress, nor court’s annulment of his across-the-board tariffs is likely to soften his stance toward partners. European leaders have lear­ned, through the Greenland episode, trade conflicts, and Iran war, “to hope for the best but to expect the worst,” she said.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2026 ...