G7 finance leaders try to downplay tariff disputes, find consensus | U.S. & World [Video]

By Julia Payne and Christian Kraemer

BANFF, Alberta (Reuters) -Finance leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized democracies sought on Wednesday to downplay disputes over U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and find some common ground to keep the forum viable as they met in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

Participants said the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors were striving to issue a joint communique covering non-tariff issues, including support for Ukraine, the threat from non-market economic policies of countries including China, and combating financial crimes and drug trafficking.

The finance leaders want to avoid a fracturing of the group similar to the last time Canada hosted the G7 in 2018 during Trump’s first term, when his initial steel and aluminum tariffs and U.S. opposition to climate change language made a joint statement impossible.

That meeting, described as the “G6 plus one,” ended with Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Britain and Italy expressing “unanimous concern and disappointment” …