Boris Johnson Shows Donald Trump How to Lead the Free World
A dispute over inviting Russia to the G-7 highlights the importance of maintaining solidarity among democracies.
Statesmen.
Photographer: Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images
The U.S. did more than any other country to build the web of international institutions through which it and its democratic allies have exercised influence since World War II. So it might be surprising to hear that America is on the wrong side of a fight about adapting those institutions to a new age of great-power rivalry. Yet this is the inescapable conclusion from a recent dust-up over who should be included in an expanded Group of Seven.
The U.K.’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, is pushing to use that group as the nucleus of an effort to hold the democratic world together amid intense technological competition with China. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump seems set on diluting the G-7’s democratic nature and geopolitical cohesion.