US president Donald Trump is postponing the G7 meeting until September and says he wants to broaden the group to build a common front against China — his latest efort to unilaterally transform the long-standing alliance of major economies. “I do not feel that as a G7 it properly represents what is going on in the world,” Trump says. “It is a very outdated group of countries.” The group com- prises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US, and Trump has been trying to use the summit — scheduled to take place on 10-12 June — to build broader support for the US narrative of blaming Beijing for the spread of Covid- 19. But France, Germany and Canada have been urging Trump to focus the meeting on eforts to contain the pandemic and co-ordinate an economic recov- ery plan to jump-start the global economy amid a deepening recession triggered by virus-containment measures. The speed of any economic recovery is a key factor in the global oil demand outlook.
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