Merkel-Trump G7 face-off photo headed for history books

An official photo posted by the German government showing a determined Angela Merkel standing up to an intransigent Donald Trump appears destined for the history books, summing up the deep fractures left by a disastrous G7 summit. The already iconic picture by Berlin’s official photographer at the gathering in Canada, Jesco Denzel, set social media alight when it appeared on Saturday, hours before Trump ripped up the hardfought summit conclusions in an angry tweetstorm. The image, which drew comparisons to a Baroque painting, shows Merkel standing at the centre of the image leaning across a table before a seated Trump, his arms crossed in defiance. Merkel, looking focused or exasperated depending on the viewer’s interpretation, is flanked by British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, their faces largely obscured. Shinzo Abe of Japan looks on with a world-weary expression. Many saw a distillation of a crisis of the West in the photograph