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在线翻译:
szdaily -> World -> 
G7 wrestles with Iran, Amazon fires and trade
    2019-08-27  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

GROUP of Seven (G7) leaders closed their summit yesterday with discussion of world problems including the fires ravaging the Amazon rainforest, but it was overshadowed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade wars and questions over the group’s unity.

The summit in Biarritz, a high-end surfers’ paradise in southwestern France, saw a dramatic shift of focus Sunday when Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif flew in to discuss the diplomatic deadlock on Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Zarif’s presence had not been expected and it represented a gamble by French host Emmanuel Macron who is seeking to soothe spiralling tensions between Iran and the United States.

The Iranian top diplomat didn’t meet Trump, French diplomats said, but the presence of the two men in the same place at least sparked hopes of a detente. Just this July, the U.S. Government imposed heavy sanctions seeking to hamper Zarif’s travel, and effectively banning him from the United States.

“Road ahead is difficult. But worth trying,” the U.S.-educated Zarif tweeted after meeting Macron and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, as well as British and German representatives.

French officials said Trump, who has imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian economy over its nuclear program, had been aware of the arrival. The sources suggested that the secretive visit had also been discussed during an impromptu two-hour lunch between the U.S. president and Macron on Saturday.

“We work with full transparency with the Americans,” one diplomat told reporters on condition of anonymity, despite U.S. media reports that the White House had been taken by surprise.

Trump proclaimed that the G7 summit was going “beautifully” Sunday.

Leaders of the G7 countries — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — ended their second day with another sumptuous dinner of the finest French cuisine. They also posed for a group photo with the ocean and Biarritz’s tall lighthouse as a backdrop.

Trump stands out from the rest of the G7 in his budding friendship with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army officer who has given freer rein to industrial farmers and loggers who have made the country an agribusiness power — at huge cost to the environment.

An even bigger issue dividing Trump from the rest of the G7 throughout the summit was trade and the U.S. president’s effort to force even close allies into hard negotiations on market access and tariffs.

At a breakfast meeting, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the latest of the G7 partners to urge Trump to step back from trade wars that critics fear could tip the world economy into recession.

“Just to register a faint, sheep-like note of our view on the trade war — we are in favor of trade peace on the whole,” Johnson told Trump. (SD-Agencies)

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