The first day of discussions between the leaders of the world's 20 richest economies came to an end on Friday 7 July without agreement on the tone of their common communiqué, especially its trade section – with the USA making its green light conditional upon a strong text on overcapacity in the steel sector.
The leaders' sherpas were thus going to start a new evening of negotiations, having already talked until the small hours of Thursday night to Friday.
The previous day, the same problems had come up with the Chinese opposing a strong message on steel and the Americans linking this issue to the discussions on trade. Agreeing on a text as far as global trade is concerned is proving "very difficult", Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel stated at the end of the first day of the G20 conference.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin meanwhile criticised the trade and financial restrictions that he said are "illegal and politically biased". "We are against the economic protectionism which is gaining momentum in the world", he said at a meeting with the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
The EU repeated its determination to retaliate should the USA end up adopting discriminatory measures on steel imports in order to protect the US sector. "I don't want to tell you in detail what we would do, but I can tell you that we would only need days, and not months, to respond with counter-measures", European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker stated on Friday morning.
No detail has yet filtered through from the bilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump and Putin. The previous day, Trump had criticised Russia for its role in the Syrian crisis.
Upon arriving in Hamburg, Trump held meetings with representatives from Japan and South Korea. The three delegations are reported to have agreed on keeping up pressure on China to use its influence in the face of provocations from North Korea –which at the start of the week launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. Trump threatened Pyongyang with severe retaliation on Thursday. Putin meanwhile said that it was important to keep a cool head on this issue. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)