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2017 Hamburg G20 Meeting Thread
Topic Started: Jul 7 2017, 10:15 AM (87 Views)
Webster
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(The Guardian) Welcome to the Guardian’s coverage of the G20 summit in Hamburg, where the leaders of the world’s major economies are meeting for what looks set to be one of the most fractious gatherings in years.

The first face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin at 3.45pm CET has grabbed the headlines. But with multiple major disagreements to address in a period of real global uncertainty there are many reasons why the two-day summit in the northern German port city could prove volatile both inside and – with police and protestors already clashing – outside the venue.

Issues and leaders to watch include:
--North Korea’s first successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. US president Donald Trump will seek to persuade his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to exert more pressure.
--German Chancellor Angela Merkel wanted global migration and climate change to top the summit agenda and has vowed to strongly defend the 2015 Paris climate accord with EU allies after Trump pulled the US out last month.
--Trump also faces clashes, particularly with Germany and China, over his protectionist “buy American, hire American” agenda. He is reportedly weighing punitive 20% tariffs on steel imports.
--Trump’s encounter with Putin will be closely watched: the pair disagree on foreign policy from Syria to Ukraine and North Korea, Trump on Thursday accused Russia of acting as a destabilising force, and US intelligence officials’ have repeatedly said Putin directed a major hacking operation to tip the presidential election Trump’s way.
--Trump’s talks with Xi will also be critical; the two are at odds over policy towards North Korea, trade, arms sales and territorial waters.
--Merkel’s meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is also likely to be a frosty affair, with relations between Berlin and Ankara badly strained by rights abuses in the wake of Turkey’s failed coup last year.

And the summit takes place against a backdrop of mass street protests by radical, hard left and anti-globalisation activists, including up to 8,000 potentially violent extremists. Some 20,000 police are on duty and rallies have been banned in a large area of the city, which has a long history of violent protest.

Police used water canon and pepper spray on Thursday night as up to 12,000 demonstrators, some wearing masks, set off on a “Welcome to Hell” march. Cars were set alight, bottles and smoke bombs thrown, and police said 74 officers were wounded, most with minor injuries.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Guardian political editor Anushka Astana writes: May has made clear that she will be seeking a trade deal with Japan after Brexit, and is likely to raise the issue in a bilateral meeting with prime minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday.

“We have been promoting the concept of an EU-Japan free trade agreement – we believe that is an important agreement for the European union to sign,” said May about the agreement signed just days ago.

“And as believers in free trade we have been promoting that but we are also talking to the Japanese about what arrangements we can have in place once we’ve left the European Union. These are not mutually exclusive – it is possible for the European Union to have a free trade agreement with Japan and for the United Kingdom to have an agreement with Japan when we leave the EU.”
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has a fuller take on this morning’s press conference by the EU council and commission presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, in which they warned that the bloc would impose counter-measures “within days” if Donald Trump took action to protect the US steel industry: In one of the most serious warnings of a tit-for-tat response if the US resorts to protectionist measures, Juncker said the EU was “in elevated battle mood”. Targets could include American whiskey exports.

Speaking at the start of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Juncker said: “I don’t want to tell you in detail what we’re doing. But what I would like to tell you is that within a few days – we won’t need two months for that – we could react with counter-measures. I am telling you this in the hope that all of this won’t be necessary. But we are in an elevated battle mood.”

The EU trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, has already said she is “extremely worried” about a US threat to curb steel imports for national security reasons, saying the step could trigger protectionist reactions around the world.

-Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/07/eu-battle-mood-us-protectionist-steel
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Merkel says millions hope G20 leaders will help solve world's problems
--Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, has told the G20 summit’s leaders in her official welcome speech that millions of people are hoping that they can make a contribution to solving the world’s problems.

Merkel said she was sure every leader present would make an effort to achieve “good results”, but added that “solutions can only be found if we are ready to compromise”.

Speaking at the start of a working lunch at which the leaders will discuss global growth and trade, Merkel nonetheless said the leaders should not be reluctant to identify and address their differences.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Trump and Peña Nieto meet
--Donald Trump and the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, have met at the G20 in Hamburg in their first face-to-face encounter since Trump became president. “It’s great to be with my friend the president of Mexico,” the US leader said. Peña Nieto said he hoped to continue a “flowing dialogue” with his US counterpart.

The Mexican leader had planned an early visit to Trump’s White House but cancelled over Trump’s insistence that Mexico pay for the border wall he promised during his election campaign to deter illegal Mexican immigration.

Trump has since repeatedly insisted the wall will get built, and said on Friday that he “absolutely” wants Mexico to pay for it. Peña Nieto insists Mexico will not.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The leaders’ partners’ programme for the day has been amended because of ongoing protests around the city, German media report. Hosted by Angela Merkel’s husband Joachim Sauer, the programme kicked off with a boat trip around Hamburg harbour that the US first lady, Melania Trump, had to skip because she was prevented by demonstrators from leaving her guesthouse.

This afternoon’s planned visit to a climate research centre has been scrapped and replaced with a presentation by climate scientists at a luxury Hamburg hotel.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in has said he is in favour of dialogue with North Korea despite the “nuclear provocation” of its test launch this week of what Pyongyang said was a nuclear-capable intercontinental missile, Reuters reports.

Speaking after a meeting with Vladimir Putin, Moon also said he saw a role for Putin in helping de-escalate the crisis on the Korean peninsula. Putin warned all parties involved against losing self-control, urging a “pragmatic, accurate” approach to its missile programme.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Trump and Putin hold meeting
--Donald Trump’s first meeting as US president with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is under way.

Reuters reports that the US leader told Putin “It is an honour to be with you” and Putin replied: “I’m delighted to meet you personally, and I hope our meeting will bring results.” Phone conversations were “never enough”, he added.

Trump refused to answer a shouted question about Russian meddling in the US presidential election, but told Putin: “We look forward to a lot of positive things happening for Russia and the US.”

The encounter is being closely watched: the two men disagree strongly on foreign policy areas including Syria, Ukraine and North Korea and Trump on Thursday accused Russia of acting as a destabilising force.

US intelligence officials have also repeatedly said Putin directed a major hacking operation to tip the November 2016 presidential election Trump’s way, something Trump has been reluctant to directly acknowledge.

Their first sit-down meeting is expected to last for about 30 minutes.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The leaders of the US, Japan and South Korea have condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile test this week as a “major escalation” and promised to apply “maximum pressure” to counter Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.

The launch was “a major escalation that directly violates multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions and that clearly demonstrates the growing threat” North Korea poses, the three countries said in a joint statement.

“President Trump reaffirmed the ironclad commitment of the United States to defend the ROK (Republic of Korea) and Japan using the full range of its conventional and nuclear capabilities,” they added.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has a slightly fuller account of the long-awaited first meeting between Trump and Putin. The brief conversation in front of reporters took place just before the two withdrew for private talks: Trump said: “We’ve had some very, very good talks. We’re going to have a talk now and obviously that will continue. We look forward to a lot of very positive things happening for Russia and for the United States and for everyone concerned.”

Speaking through a translator, Putin said: “We spoke over the phone... but phone conversations are never enough, definitely.

“If you want to have a positive outcome in bilaterals and be able to resolve most international policy issues, that will really need personal meetings. I’m delighted to be able to meet you personally, Mr President. And I hope, as you have said, our meeting will yield positive result.”

Trump did not respond to repeated shouted questions about whether he would raise the politically toxic issue of Russian hacking of the Novemver 2016 presidential election.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) Guardian political editor Anushka Asthana, who is travelling with Theresa May, has news of the prime minister’s bilateral meeting with Italy’s prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, to discuss the migration crisis in the Mediterranean: “The two leaders agreed that a team from Home Office and DFID will travel to Italy to offer expertise on processing papers and other documents to allow migrants to be returned to their source country,” a Downing street spokeswoman said.

“They also committed to work together to tackle the problem upstream. They will work together on how best to spend £75million pledged by DFID to help migrants making the journey from Africa to the central Mediterranean route.”

The government has announced some of the money will be made available to fund voluntary returns home for migrants.
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Webster
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(The Guardian) China's Xi Jinping urges open world economy
--China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called on G20 members to champion an open world economy, strengthen economic policy coordination and forestall risks in financial markets, Reuters reports.

Citing the Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Reuters said Xi also urged member states to follow a “multilateral trade regime” amid concerns over mounting protectionist pressures, including from Donald Trump’s US administration. “We must remain committed to openness and mutual benefit for all so as to increase the size of the global economic ‘pie’,” Xi was quoted as saying. The world’s economy was still troubled by deep-seated problems and faces many uncertainties and destabilising factors, he added.

Xi had already offered a vigorous defence of globalisation and signalled Beijing’s desire to play a bigger role on the world stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
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(The Guardian) Trade talks "very difficult" – Merkel
--Angela Merkel has said in remarks to reporters at the Hamburg summit that it had so far produced “very difficult” discussions on trade.

The German chancellor said negotiators “still have a great deal of work ahead of them” to reach an agreed passage on trade in the summit’s closing communique, adding that most participants called for “free but also fair trade” and underlined the significance of the World Trade Organisation.

Concerns about Donald Trump’s “America First” approach have dominated trade talks at the G20 meeting. Merkel the discussions were “very difficult, I don’t want to beat about the bush with that.”

The German chancellor added that “most” of the G20 participants had backed the Paris climate accord, and described the violent protests in the city as unacceptable.
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(The Guardian) Two hours for Trump and Putin
--The Trump-Putin meeting has passed the two-hour mark, according to timepieces on the scene kept by CNN and NBC.

Has Trump found time to bring up Russia’s attempts to wreck the US presidential election, from hacking emails belonging to the Clinton campaign and Democratic party, to disseminating false news stories, to an apparently oceanic phishing scheme, to tampering with voter rolls – to possibly colluding with US political operatives?

In the United States Friday, intelligence and justice officials have been decrying Trump’s refusal to state unequivocally, as US intelligence agencies have, that Moscow was behind the election tampering.

UPDATE: Russian TV reports that the bilateral meeting has concluded after 140 minutes.
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(The Guardian) The Russian Interfax news agency advises that Putin says he and Trump discussed Syria, Ukraine, the fight against terrorism and cyber crime, Reuters reports.

No readout yet from the US side.
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(The Guardian) Putin briefly describes conversation with Trump
--Putin went straight from meeting Trump to talks with Japanese leader Shinzo Abe. He apologised for his lateness due to the talks with Trump overrunning, and in opening remarks reported by Interfax, Putin said he and Trump had discussed “Ukraine, Syria, and other bilateral problems. We returned to the problems of fighting terrorism and cybersecurity”.
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