This week, Washington discussed the idea of creating a new group of Core 5 (C5) countries, which would include China and Russia, which would "bring together traditional adversaries" and "create a sharp contrast to the existing G7".
This is reported by Politico, citing sources.
A person who worked in the White House during US President Donald Trumpʼs first term said on condition of anonymity that the idea of creating the C5 (US, China, India, Japan and Russia) "wasnʼt shocking".
“There was no discussion of C5 or C7, but there was certainly talk that existing bodies such as the G-structures or the UN Security Council were not fit for purpose given the new players today,” the person said.
The interlocutor added that Europe was not included in the theoretical C5, which, in his opinion, “would lead Europeans to believe that this administration views Russia as a prominent power capable of exerting its own influence on Europe”.
The idea to create such a group reportedly appeared in a longer, unpublished version of the National Security Strategy.
At the same time, the White House categorically denied the existence of this document, and its spokeswoman Anna Kelly stated that "there is no alternative, private or secret version" of the official plan.
A senior EU defense official has criticized Trumpʼs National Security Strategy, calling it a move aimed at "undermining European unity" and adding that the document exposes the Trump administrationʼs view that "EU unity is against US interests".
- The G7 is a group of seven of the worldʼs most economically developed democracies (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan), created to coordinate economic policy, discuss global challenges, and jointly make decisions on security, trade, development, and international crises.
- The EU has the status of a non-voting participant, and the format itself originated in the 1970s as a platform for informal but influential negotiations between the leaders of major powers.
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