G7 leaders back Trump’s plan to end Iran war that faces scepticism at home

Lead­ers at the Group of Sev­en sum­mit on Wednes­day threw their sup­port be­hind U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ten­ta­tive agree­ment with Iran to open the Strait of Hor­muz and fur­ther ex­tend a shaky cease­fire — even though nei­ther the White House nor Iran has pub­licly re­leased the text of the deal.

Clos­ing the three-day sum­mit, French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron called it a “very good deal,” adding that U.S. al­lies in the G7 sup­port it “be­cause it’s an agree­ment that puts a stop to a sit­u­a­tion of great in­sta­bil­i­ty that had ter­ri­ble con­se­quences for our economies.”

Ac­cord­ing to leaked copies of an in­ter­im agree­ment, Iran will im­me­di­ate­ly take steps to re­open the Strait of Hor­muz, at the mouth of the Per­sian Gulf, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and nat­ur­al gas sup­plies once passed, once the deal is signed. Iran will al­so be al­lowed to sell its oil with­out re­stric­tions. Of­fi­cials say the leaked text broad­ly match­es the doc­u­ment.

The ac­cord, due to be for­mal­ly signed in a cer­e­mo­ny in Switzer­land on Fri­day, lays out that the U.S. would work to end all Amer­i­can and Unit­ed Na­tions sanc­tions im­posed on Tehran if a fi­nal agree­ment ad­dress­ing Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram is reached.

“I think it’ll be done. They want to sign. They want to get back to a nor­mal life,” Trump said.

The fi­nal day of talks at a lake­side re­sort in the French Alps start­ed late with Trump, the last to ar­rive, say­ing “I’m the boss” as he en­tered the room and sat next to Macron. The as­sem­bled lead­ers laughed, and Trump grinned.

The G7 lead­ers closed the for­mal talks of the lead­ing in­dus­tri­al democ­ra­cies with ses­sions on the fu­ture of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and fos­ter­ing eco­nom­ic growth.

They dis­cussed con­cerns that Chi­na is flood­ing ex­port mar­kets with sub­si­dized prod­ucts, un­fair­ly out-com­pet­ing their own in­dus­tries and de­stroy­ing jobs. Lead­ers of In­dia, South Ko­rea, Kenya and Brazil al­so joined the meet­ing.

Trump lat­er plans to make a stop for a glitzy din­ner at the Palace of Ver­sailles out­side of Paris be­fore he jets back to Wash­ing­ton.

What’s in the deal

While G7 lead­ers gave it their back­ing, Trump still has to sell the deal to some mem­bers of his own par­ty who doubt it will de­fang Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram. At the same time, he faces an anx­ious in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty look­ing for him to fol­low through on his promise that the deal will re­open the Strait of Hor­muz to oil tanker traf­fic and keep it open.

The lead­ers said that an in­ter­na­tion­al mar­itime mis­sion led by France and the U.K. “can play an im­por­tant role to fa­cil­i­tate the re­sump­tion of mar­itime traf­fic in the Strait of Hor­muz by pro­tect­ing mer­chant ves­sels, re­as­sur­ing com­mer­cial ship­ping op­er­a­tors, and sup­port­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion that all mines are re­moved.”

Iran has in ef­fect shut­tered the strait, a mar­itime choke­point, since the first days of the con­flict that be­gan on Feb. 28.

The deal al­so calls for an im­me­di­ate end to all fight­ing in Lebanon be­tween Is­rael and the Iran­ian-backed mili­tia Hezbol­lah. That is one of the most del­i­cate parts of the agree­ment be­cause Is­rael has main­tained it will con­tin­ue to de­fend it­self and to oc­cu­py vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Is­rael must with­draw un­der the deal, al­though the leaked ver­sions make no men­tion of with­draw­al.

In their de­c­la­ra­tion, G7 lead­ers said they sup­port­ed “through an im­me­di­ate ro­bust cease­fire” Lebanese ef­forts to dis­arm Hezbol­lah and pro­tect Lebanon’s ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty and sov­er­eign­ty.

Is­raeli strikes in Lebanon have killed near­ly 4,000 peo­ple, in­clud­ing hun­dreds of civil­ians, and dis­placed more than 1 mil­lion since fight­ing there be­gan on March 2. “Is­rael’s fight­ing Hezbol­lah too long, and too many peo­ple are be­ing killed,” Trump said.

Lead­ers vow to sup­port Ukraine, tack­le glob­al drug gangs and mi­grant smug­glers

In a flur­ry of unan­i­mous­ly agreed de­c­la­ra­tions, the G7 lead­ers stressed their sup­port for Ukraine as it bat­tles Rus­sia’s in­va­sion and agreed to in­crease de­liv­er­ies of air de­fence sys­tems. They al­so said they would bol­ster sanc­tions on Moscow, in­clud­ing on Rus­sia’s oil and gas in­dus­tries.

Lead­ers al­so pledged to step up the fight against the multi­bil­lion-dol­lar in­ter­na­tion­al drug trade. The state­ment comes as Trump has been wag­ing his own bat­tle against drug traf­fick­ers.

Unit­ed States mil­i­tary strikes on al­leged drug-car­ry­ing boats tran­sit­ing in Latin Amer­i­ca have killed more than 200 peo­ple since Sep­tem­ber, when the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion be­gan an op­er­a­tion it has jus­ti­fied as nec­es­sary to stem the flow of drugs.

Crit­ics have ques­tioned the le­gal­i­ty of the strikes.

In a sep­a­rate de­c­la­ra­tion, the G7 lead­ers reaf­firmed their ef­forts to halt mi­grant smug­gling and hu­man traf­fick­ing, which they said, “con­sti­tute se­ri­ous transna­tion­al crimes that erode the sov­er­eign right of States to con­trol their bor­ders and ex­pose smug­gled and traf­ficked per­sons to life-threat­en­ing risks.”

Trump lauds ‘most beau­ti­ful-look­ing man’ Mo­di

Trump said Wednes­day af­ter meet­ing with In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di that the U.S. is “very close” to reach­ing a trade deal with In­dia, and then went on to lav­ish praise on Mo­di as “a very tough ne­go­tia­tor.”

“He’s the most beau­ti­ful-look­ing man. He looks so nice. He’s like an an­gel. But ac­tu­al­ly, he’s as tough as he’s a killer,” Trump said.

The meet­ing with Mo­di at a chop­py mo­ment in the U.S.-In­dia re­la­tion­ship, in part be­cause of the war in the Mid­dle East. On June 10 three In­di­an sailors were killed in a U.S. mil­i­tary strike on a tanker in the Gulf of Oman in the midst of the Amer­i­can block­ade tar­get­ing oil ship­ments pass­ing through the Strait of Hor­muz.

Mo­di al­lud­ed to the in­ci­dent at their meet­ing, say­ing the safe­ty of In­di­an mariners “is of ut­most im­por­tance to us.” Mo­di said he was “con­fi­dent” the is­sue of sea­far­ers” will be a top pri­or­i­ty dur­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of the agree­ment be­tween the Unit­ed States and Iran. —EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP)

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Sto­ry by DAR­LENE SU­PERVILLE, AAMER MAD­HANI and SYLVIE COR­BET
Dar­lene Su­perville re­port­ed from Gene­va. AP writ­ers John Leices­ter in Evian-les-Bains, Jamey Keat­en in Gene­va, Mike Corder in The Hague, Nether­lands, and Collin Bink­ley in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed re­port­ing.