Trudeau says G20 leaders’ statement on Ukraine is not strong enough

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday the final leaders’ statement from the G20 summit in Brazil is not strong enough on the war in Ukraine.

He is also expressing some concern about the impact U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House will have on global support for Ukraine.

Russia is a member of the G20 but President Vladimir Putin has not attended a leaders’ summit since before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That year, the G20 leaders’ final statement condemned Russia’s actions and demanded it withdraw from Ukraine.

A year later, the summit ended with watered-down language about the war, and the final statement from Brazil on Tuesday was even shorter and did not mention Russia at all.

Trudeau told reporters that Canada and other G7 nations and “advanced economies” wanted a much stronger statement against the “illegal invasion of Ukraine” but the G20 has broader perspectives.

“No, it’s not strong enough for me,” he said.

Trump and his allies have criticized the U.S.’s financial support for Ukraine and there are concerns the Republicans, who will soon have full control of the White House and Congress, will drastically scale back American backing for Ukraine.

Some of Trump’s allies blasted outgoing President Joe Biden after he authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. to strike deep inside Russia.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and Utah Sen. Mike Lee were among those who accused Biden of trying to start “world war three.”

Trudeau and Biden discussed Ukraine in a 30-minute bilateral meeting in Brazil on Monday and Trudeau said Canada stands behind Biden’s decision.

“I have, for months now, talked about how important it is to degrade the capacity of the Russian military to strike into Ukraine with impunity because Ukraine hasn’t been able to strike on factories and military production sites in Russia,” Trudeau said in a press conference in Rio de Janeiro Tuesday.

“We have called for that for a while. So I think it’s a good thing that the United States has done that and other partners are doing that.”

Trudeau said the summit came “at a particularly challenging time in the world, for geopolitics but also for citizens all around the world,” due to inflation, war and climate change.

“The world is not what it was 10 years ago,” he said.

Trudeau acknowledged that Trump’s re-election has raised concerns about a number of issues, including climate change and multilateralism.

For Canada, continental trade is also top of mind as Trump has threatened to introduce new tariffs, and the North American trade agreement signed during Trump’s first term comes up for review in 2026.

There have been calls from premiers in Ontario and Alberta for Canada to consider shutting Mexico out of those talks because of questions over whether heavy Chinese investment in Mexico has become a back door into the North American market for Chinese goods.

Both Canada and the U.S. have imposed high tariffs on a number of Chinese-made goods including electric vehicles, steel and aluminum products. They both accuse China of overproduction and dumping.

While in Brazil, Trudeau met with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, their first in-person discussion since her inauguration in October.

Just before that meeting Trudeau publicly raised concern about the level of Chinese investment in Mexico.

Trudeau told reporters on Tuesday that he “highlighted directly” that concern with Sheinbaum in their meeting, adding that Canada wants to have strong trade that benefits all citizens in North America.

“But it’s up to the Mexican government to consider what position they’ll take,” he said in French.

The summit comes ahead of Canada assuming the presidency of the G7, a group of powerful economies with like-minded views on geopolitics. Last time Canada hosted the G7 leaders’ summit in 2018, Trump infamously stormed out after tense exchanges over the steel and aluminum tariffs he imposed on Canada. He called Trudeau “dishonest and weak.”

The prime minister said his government is “not going to panic” about next year’s summit in Alberta.

“The challenge of working with an American president that doesn’t always put multilateralism and summitry at a high priority is going to be real, but we navigated it successfully,” he said, noting progress at that summit on artificial intelligence and girls’ education.

“When we stay focused on what matters for Canadians, on the principles and the things that are impacting everyone around the world — including American citizens — there’s always ways of getting through.”

Trudeau added that South Africa is taking a similar approach as it hosts the G20 next year, with a focus on how emerging economies can secure more energy.

“The world is divided politically (but) citizens around the world are facing the same kinds of challenges,” he said.

“There are pressures on families around what kind of jobs they’re going to be able to do in a shifting economy; what are the impacts of climate change on their agriculture.”

Last week in Peru, Trudeau announced Canada would push for more nuclear-power collaboration with southeast Asian countries.

He said Tuesday that providing “electricity cleanly, to people in vulnerable parts of the world in really concrete ways” will be a key way Canada tries to form alliances with countries closer to China and India than with Western powers.

“Canada is a source of solutions,” he said.

Trudeau also said that if the looming Trump administration cracks down on green technologies, it could represent an economic opportunity for Canada.

“I’m worried about the U.S. stepping back on the fight against climate change,” he said.

“If people look at the United States as not a place where it’s interesting to innovate and fight climate change, people will automatically turn to Canada.”

John Kirton, head of the G20 Research Group, said the summit produced a relatively weak closing statement, with 174 commitments instead of the roughly 240 from each of the last two G20 summits.

“That’s a significant drop, and many of the Rio commitments were weak,” he said, noting that many of the pledges were recommitments, or agreeing to meet on an issue instead of taking concrete action.

He said the summit also came up with no new financial pledges, with countries instead agreeing to take actions generally to fix issues that drive hunger and poverty.

He said despite Trudeau’s concerns, the language on Ukraine could have been much weaker such as by calling for a ceasefire, as some G20 members have called for.

Kirton added that Trudeau would likely appreciate the declaration’s language on migration, to respect the rights of all who leave their country while tackling the causes of illicit migration. Kirton said that’s in sharp contrast to Trump’s proposed policies.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 19, 2024.