Canada Faces the Storm – Trump’s Appearance as a Global Trial by Fire

Kananaskis, a place of silence high in the Canadian Rockies, will this weekend become the stage for a global political drama. Here, where the wind whistles between the peaks and echoes of past G8 summits still linger, the heads of state and government of the leading industrial nations gather – including a U.S. President who did not come to unite, but to divide. Donald Trump, the man who publicly suggested making Canada the 51st state of the United States, is traveling to a country that has under Prime Minister Mark Carney already shaped itself into a diplomatic counterweight. And Carney, the former central banker with intellectual clarity and political resolve, does not receive this president with submissive protocol, but with an agenda of distancing.

Trump is waging war – economically, rhetorically, strategically – against exactly the countries that now await him at the negotiating table. Tariffs, threats, nationalism. What was once a G7 promise of global coordination has under Trump become a geopolitical stress test. Carney has drawn consequences from these signs: no joint final communiqué, no artificially created consensus. As Macron did in Biarritz in 2019, he refuses the diplomatic ritual and replaces it with a sober summary – a Chair’s Summary that does not pretend what is not there. Because unity is fragile, trust is weakened, and expectations for this summit are subdued to alarmed. The cracks in the global architecture become visible as soon as Trump steps onto the grounds. On paper it is about growth, climate, security – in truth it is about the relationship with a president who only knows rules to break them. Volodymyr Zelensky is expected, once again forced to confront the erratic performance of the man who once tied U.S. support for his country to conditions. Also Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s new president, dares her first in-person meeting with Trump – fully aware that every handshake is on diplomatic porcelain.

And while Macron travels demonstratively via Greenland – that Arctic territory whose annexation Trump once demanded – Canada is considering how to face the political theater that Trump masters so effortlessly. Robert Bothwell, a historian from Toronto, sums it up: “It all depends on what kind of theater he wants to stage this time.” Because you cannot predict how Trump will act – only that he will perform. But Canada under Carney appears confident. He has not only welcomed Prime Minister Starmer, Chancellor Merz, and Prime Minister Ishiba – he also invited Narendra Modi, despite serious allegations of violence involving agents linked to Modi’s government in Canada. Not out of naivety, but out of diplomatic calculation: those who exclude lose influence. Those who invite set the framework. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince remains absent – a gesture that speaks louder than words.

Yet the real explosive substance lies in the economic understructure. Trump has imposed tariffs on almost every country, including all G7 states except the United Kingdom. With 10 percent import taxes and the threat of even larger trade barriers, he is attacking not only partners, but the very principle of multilateral trade. The World Bank has already lowered its growth forecast – citing “a dramatic surge in trade barriers.” The United States, once the guarantor of economic stability, now appears as an arsonist at the heart of the system. And the memory of Quebec 2018 remains vivid. Back then Trump called the Canadian prime minister “weak” and “dishonest,” pulled out of a G7 communiqué at the last minute, and called for Russia’s return to the group – even though British citizens had just been killed by Russian operatives using a nerve agent. The summit ended in a political wreck. This year Carney hopes to avoid such scenes – not through rapprochement, but through smart limitation.

But it is not just the G7 that is at stake in Kananaskis. It is also a geopolitical moment of transition. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will attend – in advance of the Brussels summit, where Trump is pushing for a defense spending quota of 5 percent. Carney has hinted that he considers that an illusion. Canada will meet the current NATO target of 2 percent, but will not push the self-imposed obligation into the abyss. Security, he suggests, is not a numbers game – it is a matter of responsibility. And while demonstration zones are being established in Calgary and Banff, with live audio and video feeds transmitted into the summit hall, Kananaskis itself remains untouched. Access roads are closed, the public is kept out – and perhaps that is both symbol and protective mechanism. Because what is about to unfold there is not an open debate, but a diplomatic high-wire act over a burning foundation.

Trump is traveling to a country he has never recognized as a sovereign partner. The question is not whether he will sabotage the summit – only when and how. And whether in the midst of this political storm, there still exists a place where the idea of the West – cooperation instead of confrontation – is not just remembered but lived. Perhaps, for a moment, high up in the mountains. But breath is shallow. The world is holding its breath. And no one knows what comes next.