Theresa May landed in Quebec on Thursday, swapping bruising rows with cabinet colleagues over Brexit for what could also be bruising confrontations between the US president Donald Trump and the other G7 members over tariffs and foreign policy.
The 44th meeting of the G7 group of the world’s seven richest countries is taking place deep in rural Quebec in eastern Canada. The venue is a vast ski-and-golf resort that sits by a lake in the basin of a 34-mile crater left by a meteor strike millions of years ago. It writes its own metaphors.
But the remote beauty of the landscape will not be matched by the atmosphere inside. The worthy agenda of gender equality and economic prosperity proposed by the host, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is already deep in the shadow of an unprecedented series of rows among the G7 members.
The combined pressure of six – France, Germany, the UK, Japan, Canada and Italy (the latter largely absent resolving domestic issues) – to persuade Trump either to stick with the Iran nuclear deal or to reconsider his determination to impose tariff barriers on steel and aluminium imports has so far failed.
Tariffs are the more urgent issue. The EU has already handed the WTO a list of goods from jeans to motorbikes that would be covered by any tit for tat trade restrictions. In less than 30 days, damaging tariffs could be in place.
Donald Trump’s victory in US election in November 2016 put the fate of the deal in doubt. He had promised prior to his election to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran”, although many believed he might instead adopt a more rigorous implementation of the agreement and tighten sanctions already in place. This could force Tehran to violate first or make the deal redundant.
In January, he reluctantly waived a raft of sanctions against Iran as required by Congress every 120 days, but said “this is a last chance” and asked “European countries to join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal”. The congressional deadline Trump faces this time is on 12 May, but he tweeted on Monday that he will announce his decision by Tuesday. Trump believes the agreement is a bad deal, which falls short of addressing Iran’s regional behaviouror its missile programme. He is emboldened by a group of Iran hawks in his inner circle, such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo.
The UK exports around 7% of steel production and 3% of aluminium to the US. Last week, despite reservations by the international trade secretary Liam Fox, the government announced it would join any EU action.
On Iran, the battle now is to protect EU companies from US sanctions. The UK, France and Germany have signed a joint letter demanding that European companies are spared from US sanctions imposed on Iran after Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear agreement with Tehran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
May, in her first face to face meeting with the world leaders who backed her by introducing diplomatic sanctions over the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury three months ago, will also want to restate her commitment to a rules-based international order, and her determination to prevent the normalisation of chemical weapons.
She will also have the chance of a quiet word with both Angela Merkel the German Chancellor, and President Macron with little more than a fortnight to go before the EU summit.
But the wider themes in Quebec are empowering women and girls and promoting a sustainable environment. May will call for a united front to press the industry to ensure women can use the web without fear of being subjected to online rape threats, harassment, cyberstalking, blackmail, vile comments and more.
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She wants the techniques now widely used to tackle online terrorist propaganda to be extended to end abuse targeted specifically at women and girls, in particular content promoting or depicting violence against women and girls, including illegal violent pornography and rape threats on social media platforms.
May believes the UK has developed a pioneering legal framework to tackle online harms. The government is planning legislation on a mandatory social media code of practice, transparency reporting and online advertising. A white paper is due later this year.
In remarks trailed in advance, the prime minister plans to say: “What is illegal offline is illegal online and I am calling on world leaders to take serious action to deal with this, just like we are doing in the UK with our commitment to legislate on online harms such as cyberstalking and harassment.”
On World Oceans Day, Michael Gove, the environment secretary will also announce plans for increasing the number of marine conservation zones from 50 to 91. These will prevent activities such as dredging, or “significant” onshore or offshore development and stop existing harmful activities.
The new zones are intended to protected species such as the short snouted seahorse, stalked jellyfish and peacock’s tail seaweed and a dozen other exotically-named marine creatures.
In Canada, May will urge collective action to tackle “this shared environmental challenge”.
In her speech she will say: “Marine plastics pollution is one of the greatest environmental challenges facing the world today.
“The UK government is a world leader on this issue, with our 25 Year Environment Plan setting out a clear ambition to eliminate avoidable plastic waste to protect our rivers and seas.
“There is an urgent need for greater global action and coordination on marine plastics pollution, including working with business, industry and non-governmental organisations to find innovative and effective solutions.
“This is a global problem, requiring global solutions.”
