The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US have convened in England to discuss some of the world’s most pressing issues.
The heads of other major democracies, such as South Korea, South Africa and Australia, are also attending the event, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is addressing the summit via video link due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
RT’s Boom Bust is joined by investigative journalist and the program co-host Ben Swann to assess whether the significance of G7 majors is as enormous as they think.
Also on rt.com G7 nations seek to counter China’s Silk Road projects with ambitious infrastructure plan“The G7 is just not that big of a deal... they think they’re a big deal, because they are really seven nations that at one time were a vast part of the world economy, but now consists of about a third of the world’s economy,” Ben Swann said.
The journalist highlighted the minor part of such nations as India and South Africa that “have to stand on the sidelines,” and mentioned Russia and China that “aren’t even allowed to attend.”
“A lot of it feels like posturing; I hate to be mean here, but why is Canada there? Just to stand there and cheerlead for the US and say ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever you, guys, want!’” he said, stressing that countries with GDPs like that of Canada and Italy should not be considered world leaders in this space.
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