EDITORIAL: Anthony Albanese will need to tread carefully at the G7 summit in Canada

Let’s hope Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is feeling dexterous.

For when he rolls up to the Group of Seven meeting in Canada beginning at the weekend he will need to ready for anything. While it may have become rather a cliche to say we live in uncertain times, the truth is that is the truth.

And there will be plenty of uncertainty as Mr Albanese takes his place at the summit.

The Group of Seven is an informal grouping of the world’s advanced economies — the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, along with the European Union and other invited nations.

And it is the expected presence of US President Donald Trump that hovers above the meeting like a storm cloud. The world knows full well that with Mr Trump it is wise to expect the unexpected.

When Mr Trump attended a G7 in Canada in 2018 the meeting fractured and the president left early. The international back drop this time includes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the crisis in the middle east, Mr Trump’s trade wars and for the host nation of course, his repeated calls for Canada to become the “51st State” of the US.

It is a febrile environment for Mr Albanese to walk into. He is expected to meet Mr Trump for the first time on the sidelines of the meeting.

As well as trade, the leaders are likely to canvass the AUKUS partnership, defence spending and critical minerals.

Mr Albanese is under pressure to make Australia’s case for exemptions or relief from American tariffs. The Trump administration has so far imposed hefty tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, and also slugged Australia with a 10 per cent so-called reciprocal tariff despite Australia not having tariffs on any US goods

Australia has biosecurity restrictions on the import of Canadian and Mexican beef that is slaughtered in the US — one of Mr Trump’s main gripes against Australia.

There have been reports suggesting Australia could leverage small, safe changes to its import ban on some slaughtered beef from the US to secure an exemption — although Mr Albanese has so far said he would not risk the safety of local agriculture by relaxing rules.

Also looming large is defence spending. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has urged Australia to increase its military spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. That would be a big increase on current defence spending, which sits at about 2 per cent of GDP.

It’s a fair bet that is what Mr Trump will push too. Mr Albanese must tread carefully. Mr Trump is likely to push back hard if he feels his policies are under attack.

It is to be hoped that nobody reminds Mr Trump that when he was Opposition Leader, Mr Albanese confessed that Mr Trump: “Scares the shit out of me”.

Or about ambassador Kevin Rudd’s previous comments that Mr Trump was a “traitor to the West” and the “most destructive president in history.”

If there is disagreement, Mr Albanese will hope it is behind closed doors so he avoids the fate of other world leaders who have suffered through a dressing down as the TV cameras roll.