G7 Leaders Brace for Clash With Trump

World leaders braced for contentious talks Friday with President Donald Trump at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily after he earlier lambasted NATO allies for not spending more on defense.

Trump's confrontational remarks in Brussels, on the eve of the two-day summit in the Mediterranean resort town of Taormina, cast a pall over a meeting at which America's partners had hoped to coax him into softening his stances on trade and climate change, CNBC reported.

The summit will kick off with a ceremony at an ancient Greek theater perched on a cliff overlooking the sea, before the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States begin talks on terrorism, Syria, North Korea and the global economy.

"We will have a very robust discussion on trade and we will be talking about what free and open means," White House economic adviser Gary Cohn told reporters late Thursday.

He also predicted "fairly robust" talks on whether Trump should honor a US commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Trump, who dismissed man-made global warming a "hoax" during his election campaign, is not expected to decide at the summit whether he will stick with the Paris deal, negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama.

Even if a decision is not forthcoming, European leaders have signaled that they will push Trump hard on the Paris emissions deal, which has comprehensive support across the continent.

The summit, being held near Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, is the final leg of a nine-day tour for Trump—his first foreign trip since becoming president—that began in the Middle East.

Leaders of G7 leading industrialized countries met on the Italian island of Sicily for what European Council President Donald Tusk said would "no doubt" be "the most challenging G7 summit in years."

Some of the participants hold "very different positions on topics such as climate change and trade," Tusk said before the two-day summit opened on May 26.

"Most importantly, unity needs to be maintained when it comes to defending the rules-based international order," he said, warning that "if our group is not determined and united enough, the situation in the world can really get out of hand."