Donald Trump renews calls for Russia to rejoin G7 ahead of summit in France

Donald Trump has said it would be appropriate for Russia to be readmitted to the G7 ahead of the summit in France.

Mr Trump is scheduled to fly to France on Saturday for the annual meeting of the G7, a group of the world's major industrial nations.

Speaking ahead of the summit, the US President said Russia is often discussed when he and the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan meet annually as a group.

In March 2014, at the urging of then-president Barack Obama, the leaders expelled Russia from what was the Group of Eight after President Vladimir Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

President Trump claims Mr Obama pushed for Russia's expulsion because President Putin had "outsmarted" him.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr Trump said: "I’ve gone to numerous G7 meetings and I guess President Obama because Putin outsmarted him, President Obama thought it wasn’t a good thing to have Russia in so he wanted Russia out.

"I think it’s much more appropriate to have Russia in and it should be the G8. So I could certainly see it being the G8 again."

The president made similar comments about reinstating Russia to the G7 before he attended the 2018 summit but nothing came of it.

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Boarding Marine One for the summit last year, Mr Trump told reporters "Russia should be in this meeting".

He added: "They should let Russia come back in, because we should have Russia at the negotiating table."

The summit will be hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Biarritz, France, over the weekend.

The group meets to discuss issues from world energy policy to international security.

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