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7/4/17

G20 summit: When is it, what will happen, and what will Trump do this time? - by Tom Peck

An annual meeting of the leaders of the world’s largest economies - just about. Spain is a ‘permanent invitee’ without being an actual member. There are only, in fact, nineteen members.

The twentieth is the European Union, which partially explains the absence of other major economies, like the Netherlands.

Alongside the likes of Britain, France, Germany, China and the US, are Turkey, Argentina, South Africa, Indonesia Saudi Arabia and others.

It is a larger and more significant meeting than the G8, which occurred earlier this year, not least as Russia is currently suspended from the G8 over its intervention in Crimea.

Ms Merkel has said she will make climate change, free trade and the management of mass migration the major themes of the summit, setting her, and potentially the whole of the EU up for a major clash with President Trump. On climate change the two are poles apart. On free trade Trump’s economic nationalism is distinctly distant from the European position. On mass migration, Merkel has welcomed more than a million migrants to Germany, primarily from Isis warzones, while in the US, Trump has sought to impose a ban on all Muslim immigration.

Between them, the membership accounts for 85 per cent of the world’s GDP and two thirds of its population.

Read more: G20 summit: When is it, what will happen, and what will Trump do this time? | The Independent

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