Guardian article: The G7 reflects a world ruled by self-interest rather than global ambition

Big problems

This “personal” meeting, which is the first for the leaders of the seven industrialized countries since the beginning of the epidemic, took place on the impact of major problems on the agenda, such as ways to contain the Corona pandemic, ensure a rapid recovery of the global economy and accelerate the pace of work on the climate change crisis, but the size of the response was not up challenges, according to the author.

For example, the leaders of the group pledged to provide one billion doses of vaccines to the world’s poorest countries, but – as indicated by the International Monetary Fund – these donations are only doses requested by the seven rich countries and came in excess of their needs.

In fact – the writer adds – the seven rich people were not about to make sacrifices for the world, in light of the global epidemic cost of about 28 trillion dollars, it was completely incomprehensible that these countries failed to present a serious plan to finance the production and distribution of vaccines worldwide.

A world without leadership

The British researcher asserts that what happened during the Cornwall summit indicates that we are in fact living in a world without leadership, as although President Biden was able to return his country to the path of “diplomatic respect” and renew its commitment to its international commitments and alliances, his keenness was more focused on showing himself. A president bearing the standard of change at home, while his ambitions at the international level are limited and suggest a return to the “traditional foreign policy approach” in which “the rest of the world” does not have priority.

The United States is no longer that unrivaled power as it was in the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the summit also witnessed some trolling of China by pushing the “leak theory” from the Wuhan laboratory regarding the emergence of “Covid-19”, but America has become more in need to Pacific partners – not to Europeans – to help it contain the Chinese giant.

Although the goal of containment tickles the sentiments of British politicians who are nostalgic for a bygone past, the reality is that they have nothing of significant value to offer in this regard.

The writer concludes that the epidemic has shown over the past 18 months that countries capable of operating at the global level lack ambition that goes beyond the pursuit of their precisely defined national interest, in return for those with ambition lack of means or sufficient commitment, so the meeting of the last seven countries reflects the reality of our world. The current situation where self-interest is far more important than any openness or international aspirations.