The island also is lovely in June, when G-7 leaders come to America next year. (Photo: Grand Hotel)
As President Trump calls a site selection do-over, he has a chance to play it straight on picking a Group of Seven meeting site next year.
Playing it straight could mean flying global leaders across the Straits of Mackinac.
The president drops his idea of hosting the annual gathering at his Trump National Doral Miami resort in Florida, a reversal announced in customary style:
....Therefore, based on both Media & Democrat Crazed and Irrational Hostility, we will no longer consider Trump National Doral, Miami, as the Host Site for the G-7 in 2020. We will begin the search for another site, including the possibility of Camp David, immediately. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019
He backs off after fierce, though not necessarily crazed, hostility over profiteering from his conflict-of-interest decision. Three House Democrats on Friday introduced a pointedly named bill to block it: the Trump's Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act.
The G7 is a bloc of industrialized democracies—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States—that meets each year to discuss global economic governance, international security and energy policy.
Barack Obama hosted it at Camp David in May 2012. This time, Michigan made a short list of potential destinations, Detroit journalist Chad Livengood reported last month:
A spokeswoman for the Grand Hotel told Crain's [Sept. 13] that the famed Mackinac Island hotel and resort was vetted and considered for the G7 meeting.
Vice President Mike Pence spoke four weekends ago on the island, addressing a state Republican Leadership Conference.
-- Alan Stamm
