The US will hold the next G7 summit, which was initially scheduled to take place in June. However, on 31 May, Trump said that the meeting would be postponed until September, adding that the current format is "outdated" and that he will invite the leaders of India, Australia, South Korea, and Russia to the next summit.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said in a statement that Moscow agrees with President Donald Trump's remark that the G7 is “outdated”, and “no longer properly reflects things happening in the world”.
The statement comes after Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the importance of an effective arms control regime and progress towards convening a G7 summit during a phone conversation on 1 June.
Following the conversation, the Kremlin said in a statement that Trump had briefed Putin on his idea of holding a G7 summit in an extended format.
Trump said earlier that he intended to postpone the G7 summit until September and invite Russia, India, South Korea, and Australia to participate in the gathering. The White House later said the expanded summit would discuss the "future of China".
"I don’t feel that as a G7 it properly represents what’s going on in the world. It’s a very outdated group of countries", Trump said on 30 May.
In May, US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien had said that the country was postponing the next G7 meeting in Washington until late June amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The summit was originally planned for 10 June. The US president told reporters that the G7 summit would likely take place at the White House though parts of the gathering could be held at Camp David.