LA MALBAIE, Canada, March 13, (AP): US Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be walking into unusually unfriendly territory this week when he meets his counterparts from the Group of 7 industrialized democracies - strong American allies stunned by President Donald Trump’s actions against them. Just hours after Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs kicked in - prompting responses from the European Union and Canada and threatening to ignite full-scale trade wars with close US partners - Rubio arrived at the scenic Quebec town of La Malbaie on the St Lawrence River for two days of talks with the top diplomats of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

All of them have been angered by the new American president's policies. Rubio will likely be hearing a litany of complaints about Trump’s decisions from once-friendly, like-minded countries in the G7 - notably host Canada, to which Trump has arguably been most antagonistic with persistent talk of it becoming the 51st US state, additional tariffs and repeated insults against its leadership. Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly, the official host who will see each participant separately, said that "in every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to coordinate a response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans.”

"The only constant in this unjustifiable trade war seems to be President Trump’s talk of annexing our country through economic coercion,” Joly said Wednesday. "Yesterday, he called our border a fictional line and repeated his disrespectful 51st state rhetoric.” Rubio downplayed Trump's "51st state” comments, saying Wednesday that the president was only expressing what he thought would be a good idea. The G7 grouping "is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada,” Rubio said, noting that they would focus on Ukraine issues and other common topics. On tariffs, Rubio said G7 partners should understand that these are a "policy decision” by Trump to protect American competitiveness.

"I think it is quite possible that we could do these things and at the same time deal in a constructive way with our allies and friends and partners on all the other issues that we work together on,” Rubio told reporters on a refueling stop in Ireland as he headed to Canada from talks with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia. "And that’s what I expect out of the G7 and Canada.” Asked if he expected a difficult reception from his counterparts, Rubio brushed the question aside: "I don’t know, should I be? I mean, they’ve invited us to come. We intend to go. The alternative is to not go. I think that would actually make things worse, not better.”