In a few days time, leaders of the world's advanced democracies gather in Kananaskis for the G7 meeting. That would be France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, the US and (although increasingly as a courtesy) the economically-challenged Canada.But, this could be the last one: the G7 is a relic of a different era.Those with an appetite for detail can find it here at the official site. However, the G series intergovernmental organizations began as essentially optimistic attempts by the world's major economic powers to cooperate on issues of global importance. So among other things, economic growth, free trade, free movement of populations, energy, how to work Communist China into the world trading system and briefly to engage constructively with post-Communist Russia.Indeed for some 20 years, the erstwhile G7 embraced Russia and became the G8. However, Russian was suspended in 2014 when its actions in the Crimea revealed that its basic values were not those of the other G8 members. .Those basic values are promoting free trade and democracy and everything else celebrated by Francis Fukuyama in his critically acclaimed but ultimately overoptimistic book 'The End of History.'These were not unworthy principles. Fukuyama thought he was describing "the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."The G series meetings institutionalized that hope.However today, that hope looks increasingly unrealistic. Russia was always an expendable member but the issue facing the G7 now is this: With US president Donald Trump driving protectionism for America, to what extent can the free-trading G7 remain a group with common interests and objectives?It depends, I suppose, on how deep and lasting is the Trump protectionist agenda. Both aspects are subject to considerable debate..As regards depth, Trump has made it abundantly clear that his goal is to return manufacturing to the US, using tariffs to do so.A lot of people, including members of his own Republican Party, made a fortune 'offshoring' jobs to cheap-labour countries. Whatever the advantages of doing so — and cheap goods from China is admittedly an advantage — one should never suppose this was done for the good of the American people. Meanwhile the shocking social cost of moving manufacturing to Asia was borne by the increasingly marginalised American working class eulogized by J.D. Vance is his book, 'Hillbilly Elegy.'Even worse, America's ability to produce what it needs on the North American continent became compromised.In 1940, America was the arsenal of democracy. In 2025, it is not. And if one sees the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a proxy war, it is obviously one that the US is losing because it simply cannot keep up with the Ukrainian demand for US-made munitions..So much for depth. Whether the Trump effect will long endure past 2028 is a different discussion.Money is not patriotic and absent the sheer force of Trump's will, it is entirely possible that his Fortress America tariff walls will first be weakened, then entirely undermined and sadly — again — for motives of personal profit rather than national advantage.However it is clear that in the right-now, when it comes to free trade there is presently no more harmony between the aims of the Trump administration and the other G7 states, than there was in 2014 between Russia and the other members of the G8 over national borders.Does America even belong there?For now yes, no doubt, and the G7 will perhaps survive Kananaskis. However, it cannot long survive the ideological defection of its biggest member. As one wag put it, 'it'll be like a swingers' club after the good-looking woman stops showing up.'.So how should Canadians respond?Will they be wealthier, and more free, if they forge a new relationship with Europe (and Japan) as Prime Minister Carney proposes?Or should they demand he rebuild their relationship with America?On these things, the wheel is still in spin. But as we reflect upon that, we should remember that for all the advertised benefits of international cooperation and open, rules-based trade, the G7 has a darker side. Open borders, mass migration and the idea of a post-national state are implicit in the idea of international cooperation, G-style.They don't have to be, but they are. And they're killing Canada.Prime Minister Carney seems comfortable enough with the idea. But would the rest of us miss it so much?
