Trump and other leaders clash on trade, migration, climate at G7

Leaders from the world's major industrialized nations began talks on Friday at a G7 summit in Sicily which is expected to expose deep divisions with US President Donald Trump over trade, migration and climate change.

The two-day summit, at a cliff-top hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, began a day after Trump blasted NATO allies for spending too little on defense and described Germany's trade surplus as "very bad" in a meeting with EU officials in Brussels. A draft statement shown to the Guardian reveals Trump wants world leaders to make only a short reference to migration, and to throw out a plan by the Italian hosts for a comprehensive five-page statement that acknowledges migrants' rights, the factors driving refugees and their positive contribution.

The Italian plans – one on human movement and another on food security – were set to be the centrepiece of its summit diplomacy. Italy had chosen Taormina in Sicily as the venue to symbolise the world's concern over the plight of refugees coming from the Middle East and Africa. It had hoped the summit would end on Saturday with a bold statement that the world, and not just individual nations, had a responsibility for the refugee crisis. "No doubt, this will be the most challenging G7 summit in years," Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said before the meeting.

European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new French President Emmanuel Macron, had hoped to use the summit to convince Trump to soften some of his stances. But diplomats conceded as the talks began that the United States was unlikely to budge, meaning the final communique could be watered down significantly compared to the one the G7 unveiled at its last summit in Japan. But trade and climate, to be discussed on Friday afternoon, are the most contentious issues. Trump, who dismissed human-made global warming as a "hoax" during his election campaign, is threatening to pull the United States out of a 2015 climate deal clinched in Paris in 2015.