President Trump announced that the 2020 G-7 summit will take place at Camp David in Maryland, after facing backlash earlier this year for deciding to host the meeting at a Trump property.
Recent G-7 meetings have been held at Camp David, hosted by President Barack Obama, and on Sea Island, Georgia, under President George Bush.
“We are going to do it at Camp David,” Trump said in a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday in London, where leaders have gathered to mark the NATO alliance’s 70th anniversary. The G-7 is a seven-nation alliance of economically powerful countries — the annual summit location rotates among the members.
The president caught heat in October after saying that the meeting would be held at the Trump National Doral Miami, but he changed his mind after an outcry over what critics perceived as a breach of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
At the time, Fox Business host Neil Cavuto said that the announcement of the location “is effectively saying the president has given himself this contract.”
The president claimed he was under undue scrutiny from a “phony emoluments clause” and blamed Democrats and the media for protestations. Trump said hosting it at the Doral would have saved the taxpayer money because he “would have done it for free.”
The Emoluments Clause prohibits gifts, payments, or items of value from the head of a foreign state. A group of former White House ethics lawyers and constitutional lawyers have filed several lawsuits against Trump, arguing that he has violated the Emoluments Clause by benefiting from payments made by foreign governments to the Trump International Hotel in Washington. The Trump Organization is currently exploring the sale of the hotel.
