Trump called the West's rejection of the G8 format with the participation of the Russian Federation wrong

The Group of Eight (G8) format with Russia's participation was better than the G7, and Western countries should not have abandoned it. This was announced on May 21 by US President Donald Trump during a meeting with the leader of the Republic of South Africa (RSA) Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House.

"The G20 without the United States is like the G7, which was before the G8, without Russia. They brilliantly threw out Russia, but it would have been much better if Russia had been [part of the organization]," Trump said at the event, which was broadcast on the CNBC—TV18 YouTube channel.

According to him, the participation of the American side in both the G20 and G7 is of great importance. The formats lose their importance without Washington, the US president stressed.

On May 7, Trump called the decision to exclude Russia from the G8 association, taken by the West in 2014, stupid, but said that the time for restoring this format had already passed. On the same day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the G20 was more attractive to Moscow than the Group of Eight. According to him, Russia has long been uninterested in returning to the G8 format, as it does not consider it relevant.