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After welcoming Trump and members of the media to the 50th summit, in addition to wishing the president a happy birthday for last weekend, Carney concluded the eight-minute exchange with reporters before his meeting with his counterpart by citing his prerogative as the 2025 G7 chairman.

“If you don’t mind, just to exercise my role, if you will, as G7 chair since we have a few more minutes with the president and his team, and then we actually have to start the meeting to address some of these big issues,” Carney told reporters.

Then, during a later press opportunity, Carney directed Trump on where to stand for their photograph to be captured before the leaders started their first working session.

“If you would come this way,” Carney could be heard saying to Trump.

Before their first working session, Carney went on to commend Trump for his leadership approach, complementing his earlier comment that the “G7 is nothing without U.S. leadership” and the president’s “personal leadership.”

“We’re gathering at one of those turning points in history, I think we all recognize that, a turning point where the world looks to this table for leadership,” Carney said. “Nostalgia isn’t a strategy. We have to change with the times and to build a better world. And some of you, such as you, Mr. President, have anticipated these massive changes and are taking bold measures to address them.”

Carney’s G7 challenge this week is twofold. First, he has to hold the alliance of developed economies together amid Trump’s tariff war and conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, as well as Israel, Iran, and Hamas. For example, in the past, Trump has declined to endorse leaders’ communiques, including during the last summit Canada hosted, the 2018 meeting in Charlevoix. That statement was the first in G7 history not to have the support of all the leaders in attendance.

Secondly, Carney has to defend Canada after months of tension between the United States and his country because of Trump, prompted by the president’s treatment of his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, and quips about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state.

“Most Canadians” are “not excited” that Trump is in Canada for the G7 summit, according to Jeremy Ghio, a senior director at Montreal-based public affairs firm TACT and a Canadian political analyst.

“Mr. Trump needs to understand that he cannot come [to] Canada to speak about the 51st state,” Ghio told the Washington Examiner, describing the rhetoric as “a red line.”

Ghio predicted that U.S.-Canada relations would not return to their pre-Trump high “in our lifetime” because the president “broke” the relationship of trust “between two best friends.” At the same time, the dynamic has improved compared to what it was under Trudeau because the president has “respect” for Carney.

Regardless, Trump’s presence in Canada has provoked protests in Calgary, where the leaders are staying before they commute each day to Kananaskis for the summit itself.

Mary Oxendale Spensley, a member of Calgary Raging Grannies, told the Washington Examiner her organization took part in the protests on Sunday.

“The vast majority of Albertans are appalled at Trump’s threats to grab Canada,” Oxendale Spensley said. “We are in the unfortunate position of having a premier who has sided with Trump. Many of us call her a traitor now.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith “appeared on Ben Shapiro‘s show to warn Republicans to force us to become a territory, rather than a state,” according to Oxendale Spensley.

“She warned if the U.S. government made us a state and we were allowed to vote, Republicans would never win again, as we’re too progressive,” the grandmother added. “Ben suggested we be treated like Puerto Rico, so the USA could take our resources while not letting us vote.”

But regarding Trump’s discourse concerning an annexation, Oxendale Spensley reiterated her disappointment with the president for making Canadians “enemies.”

“He has threatened us repeatedly and has openly lusted after our resources,” she continued. “Please note we are not against the American people, just the current regime that steps closer to fascism by the day.”

Nevertheless, for Ghio, Canada hosting the G7 summit provides Carney with the opportunity to “negotiate terms or the surrounding of the beginning of a deal” on tariffs before the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement is reviewed next year.

“It would be very positive news, anything that touches the tariffs,” Ghio said. “If Mr. Carney and Mr. Trump are not able to negotiate such a deal, I think we can expect Canada to turn itself towards Europe.”

Even Canadian Trump supporter Derek Noonan, a 59-year-old Toronto businessman whom the Washington Examiner met during the president’s preinauguration rally at Capital One Arena, praised Carney for “working well with Trump.”

Noonan noted that Carney’s decision last week to announce his intention to increase Canada’s defense spending to 2% of his country’s GDP — the target for North Atlantic Treaty Organization members — this fiscal year, five years earlier than promised, was “to satisfy Trump.” But he also noted that the prime minister has not yet released his government’s budget, so his pledge could be “pure optics.”

Center for Strategic and International Studies Economic Security and Technology Department President Navin Girishankar downplayed the prospect of progress between the U.S. and Canada on tariffs during the G7 summit as the courts consider whether Trump can use his presidential economic emergency powers to impose duties.

Trump relied on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for his tariffs to put pressure on Canada and Mexico to take more action in countering illegal immigration and drug trafficking, in addition to the baseline 10% duties that he unveiled on “Liberation Day.”

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“I think there’s some uncertainty with respect to how the courts will rule on the IEEPA authorities that justified the initial round of tariffs to motivate action on fentanyl,” Girishankar said during a pre-summit press briefing. “Until that plays out, I don’t see the Trump administration announcing a detente. It is not in the interest of the partners to push this, either, if in the end, the courts pull it back. So I expect that Canada would be in a wait-and-see posture.”

While tariffs are the focal point of this year’s G7 summit, the war between Russia and Ukraine and Israel’s conflicts with Hamas and now Iran are simultaneously on the agenda for the leaders to discuss.