Top policymakers were expected to discuss rising energy prices and sanctions policy at a critical summit in Paris this week.
Top finance officials from the world’s wealthiest economies convened in Paris on Monday in hopes of devising a plan to contain the economic fallout from the war in Iran, which has sent global energy prices soaring and dragged down growth.
The meetings come at a fraught moment for the world economy and for the United States. After more than a year of imposing tariffs on its Western allies and threatening more, the Trump administration now needs the assistance of its fellow members of the Group of 7 nations to stabilize an economic crisis of its own making.
During the two-day gathering, the finance ministers also are expected to discuss sanctions policy, illicit finance and the future of support for Ukraine.
The summit comes days after President Trump met in Beijing with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to discuss ways to deepen ties between the world’s largest economies. Although Mr. Trump prefers to engage in bilateral negotiations, the challenge of dealing with Iran and confronting China’s control of the world’s critical minerals has forced the United States to lean on its traditional allies. That will be a tricky task given that Mr. Trump has spent much of his second term in office criticizing and threatening America’s closest allies, including Europe and Canada.
“I think there’s one lesson to be taken from the last six months, is that the law of the fittest doesn’t work,” Roland Lescure, France’s finance minister, said in an interview with The New York Times ahead of the meetings.
Mr. Lescure added that negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has obstructed since the start of the war, have required international cooperation and that China’s export restrictions on minerals have called for a global response.