// ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL POLICY: TRADE, INVESTMENT AND INFRASTRUCTURE
With trade a critical issue at this year’s summit, leaders have an opportunity to stress the importance of securing global supply chains and renewing their commitment to strengthening the rules-based multilateral trading system G7 performance on trade
The 2,919 words (30%) on trade in 2024 reinforced this new geo-economic focus. DECISIONS Since 1975, G7 leaders have made 487 trade commitments, for 8% of all G7 commitments. The most – 51 – occurred at the 2023 and 2024 summits, for 8% and 11% respectively, of the total commitments made there. This was followed by 24 commitments in 2013 (11%), and 21 in both 1977 (38%) and 2021 (5%). Between 2013 and 2017, summits produced between 10 and 24 commitments (3%–11%) per summit. Subsequently, 2018, 2019 and 2020 slumped to five or fewer (5%–12%). In 2021 they soared to 21 (5%), 18 (3%) in 2022 and up to the highest levels in 2023 and 2024. DELIVERY G7 members’ compliance with their leaders’ trade commitments average 69%, based on the G7 Research Group’s 54 assessments – well below G7’s overall average of 77%. Compliance on trade was led by the European Union at 87%, followed by Canada at 80%, the United Kingdom 76%, Japan and Germany 75%, the United States 65%, Italy 60% and France with only 54%. Compliance was low until the 2000 summit, which generated 100% compliance with commitments to launch World Trade Organization negotiations. It was mixed from 2004 to 2019, although compliance with a 2009 commitment to reverse declining foreign direct investment was 95% (despite low compliance overall for that summit) and a 2010 commitment to resist protectionist pressure was 89% (the same as the overall compliance for 2010). Since then, compliance has been strong, with 100% for 2020’s commitments to address support for trade and investment, disruptions in supply chains, and international trade facilitation. The 2021 commitment to champion free trade within a reformed trading system had 88%, 2022’s to
Sarah Richardson, research associate, G7 Research Group
A t the G7’s Kananaskis Summit, trade will soar back to the top of the agenda. All G7 economies depend on trade for economic growth, employment, innovation and low inflation. But they now face proliferating protectionism, sanctions, disrupted supply chains, uncertainty, costs and fears that a global recession or even depression could come. G7 action is urgently needed. DELIBERATION Trade has been a cornerstone of the G7’s work since its start in 1975. Until 2024, G7 leaders devoted 63,217 words of their communiqués to trade, averaging 1,264 words at each summit, for 15% of the total. In 1975, their 445 words on trade (for 39% of the communiqué’s total) extolled the benefits of an open trading system, resisted protectionist pressures and sought substantial tariff cuts through accelerated multilateral trade negotiations. By 2003, their trade agenda included trade facilitation, trade to support sustainable development and the trade liberalisation of environmentally friendly products. After 2009, and with the start of G20 summits, G7 attention to trade fell. But it returned since 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying protectionist pressures. In 2023, 6,536 words on trade (31%) included fisheries subsidies, clean energy, clean technologies, enhancing global economic resilience and economic security through trade, and establishing resilient global supply chains. Leaders emphasised the negative impacts of economic coercion through trade that “infringes upon the international order centred on respect for sovereignty and the rule of law, and ultimately undermines global security and stability.”
44 // G7 CANADA: THE KANANASKIS SUMMIT 2025
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