Trump arrives at G7 as allies press him on Ukraine and Iran

Donald Trump arrived at the G7 in Evian-les-Bains with a diplomatic win in hand and a widening split still hanging over the summit. After saying the United States and Iran had signed a memorandum of understanding to end their war, Trump turned his attention to Ukraine and Lebanon, even as European leaders tried to pull him back to Russia’s assault on Kyiv.

The summit, running June 15 to 17 in France, placed Ukraine, Europe, the Middle East, trade tensions, balanced economic growth and artificial intelligence on the agenda. Russia has been excluded from the G7 since 2014, when it was ousted after violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, a reminder that the group was built to treat Moscow’s actions as a direct challenge to the post-Cold War order.

Trump said some ships were already crossing the Strait of Hormuz and would do so toll-free, while the full text of the Iran agreement had not yet been released. He also said he would now focus on trying to end the fighting in Ukraine and Lebanon, a shift that underscored how quickly the White House was moving from one crisis to the next.

That pivot did little to calm allies, who had spent the summit trying to push Ukraine back to the center of Trump’s agenda after the Iran conflict had overshadowed it. French President Emmanuel Macron said he would seek to persuade Trump to keep supporting Ukraine and to step up pressure on Russia. The urgency reflected a blunt reality: France and other European allies are now the largest sources of military and financial support for Kyiv because U.S. aid has been cut back under Trump.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined a G7 working session that was reported to last just 75 minutes and was due to meet Trump one-on-one. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was serious about peace, while Russia was not showing serious activity and was instead playing a game. He also said G7 leaders backed Ukraine’s request for more Patriot missiles, with discussions under way on expanding production through licensing to help defend cities and power infrastructure from Russian ballistic strikes.

The pressure on Trump came as Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities just before the summit, killing 11 people and setting fire to a religious landmark. Trump, who had once claimed he could end the war within 24 hours of taking office, downplayed the conflict’s impact on the United States and signaled he could restore sanctions on Russian oil shipments as more oil moved through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. had eased some of those sanctions in March, when crude prices rose, and then extended the waiver as the Gulf conflict continued. Zelenskyy said he had offered to meet Vladimir Putin at the summit, but Putin was not ready to speak, a stark measure of how far the diplomatic gap remained.