G20 summit a chance for Canada to fiddle a new global tune while Trump continues to burn

This has been a particularly bad year for global harmony. We knew President Donald Trump was an inveterate gambler—a character flaw that led him into personal financial crises. However, now with his enhanced powers he seems to feel entitled to take on any and all supposed U.S. economic foes across the international community. A first step was his effort to change the policy realities around a nuclear-armed North Korea led by Kim Jong-un. Here he has only ended up seriously diminishing the prospects of nuclear de-escalation. The second step originates in his warped understanding of the dynamics of multilateral trade often shaped by the G20. The ensuing tariff warfare has damaged the global economy, as well as ordinary U.S. citizens and businesses. His actions threaten the economic viability of critical supply chains involving many countries, including China and Canada. Third, are recent Trump tweets banning major U.S. companies from supplying critical components needed to sustain the worldwide operations of China’s telecommunications equipment giant, Huawei. We are seeing more Trump-related risk in the ongoing tension between the U.S. and Iran in the Arab/Persian Gulf waterways carrying most of the world’s oil and subsequent sanctions. Each of these aggressive steps takes us closer to the risks of triggering a global catastrophe, a confrontation potentially leading to another massive war. On June 28 and 29 in Osaka, Japan, we will see if an answer might be found in the often-overlooked G20, a forum of finance ministers created by Canada’s Paul Martin, transformed into the leaders’ summit, that in 2008 broke the back of the global financial crisis. The last G20 in Argentina was seen by many as disappointing, chaired as it was by a politically vulnerable president who had just saddled his country with a record $57-billion loan from the IMF. Japan’s summit will have a much stronger chairperson in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but how much can we expect him to set a new tone in the upcoming summit when confronted by the great disruptor? Abe, showing typical caution, has defined some sensible, if rather conventional priorities, ultimately very similar to those of past summits and other high-level international fora: free trade, science and innovation, infrastructure, and climate change. But climate looks like it will again be a G20 sacrificial lamb, according to England's Financial Times, which reported on a leaked copy of the draft summit communiqué. According to the report, the Japanese seem to be bowing to the voice of the Trump team by denying wording calling for reduced emissions. In the end there will likely be nothing bold, except for a fashionable, but sensible, call to ban polluting plastics proposed by a G20 ministerial side meeting. But for bold ideas to lead to real action in the following months, they need support from a fully engaged set of G20 leaders. Such ideas are sometimes floated by the sherpas, senior officials who pre-negotiate the elements for the closing communiqué. But recall that this document is typically drafted several weeks before the leaders even get to dialogue on their “concluding” thoughts in the final plenary. Those who seriously want transformational ideas, institutional or policy change on the table must have already found allies among the attendees and be willing to press them at the plenary table. Most G20 leaders pay lip service in each summit cycle to a strong focus on advancing the situation of the poorest countries, notably by committing to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This objective could be facilitated by an enhanced G20 with new membership rules that will bring the voice of poorer developing countries equally and permanently to that inner table, not just as one-off special guests. A new G20 agenda, one that is inclusive, development-focused, and geopolitically engaged, requires a substantial change of perspectives within the existing membership. Today’s G20 is a mix of G7 members and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). It is rounded out by a few mid-sized European countries and key multilateral organizations, like the World Bank, plus temporary attendees selected by the host country. We will see the scale of the governance challenges as this summit unfolds. Its priorities have already been massaged by those sherpas and the summit communiqué is necessarily fine-tuned to match the political winds across the summit table. All too often, final priorities have been shaped by nothing more than the latest Trump tweets. He plans to use the convenience of the upcoming G20 to finally hold his overdue one-on-one tariff war side-event with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as sitting down with Russia's Vladimir Putin. The other G20 leaders must be feeling increasingly marginalized by the style being imposed by an egoistic U.S. president. They will be left with long coffee breaks with their Japanese chairman, perhaps a good incentive for them to think about how to have a more meaningful and inclusive agenda for world leaders under an enhanced G20. Their increasingly high-profile concerns about global warming could even be squeezed into the communiqué while Trump is busy with his side-events. How might Canada use the downtime in historic Osaka? We are no longer an internationally hot commodity. Trudeau-mania has faded. Our prime minister will likely have much on his mind beyond the G20 agenda, including a problematic general election. He might be tempted to use the coffee breaks to explore how to rebuild a longer-term relationship with India—a possible next China by 2050—or perhaps explore with the new presidents of Brazil and Mexico how to together fashion a peaceful transition for Venezuela that does not require us being dragged into a bloody U.S.-led military intervention. It could even be a chance for Canada to open up new, longer-term, geopolitical and economic partnerships with leaders of nations such as Indonesia and South Korea, rather than to wait for the next slap in the face from our directly southern neighbour. John Sinclair is a Cambridge-educated economist, formerly with the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Bank. As a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa and a McLeod Group member, he teaches and comments on global issues and international development. The Hill Times

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G20 summit a chance for Canada to fiddle a new global tune while Trump continues to burn

We will see the scale of the governance challenges as this summit unfolds. All too often, final priorities have been shaped by nothing more than the latest Trump tweets.

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