The G7 represents the world's major economies, and has long been a regular stop on the US President's calendar. In small group sessions, with only the leaders and few aides present, the world's major economic and geopolitical problems are discussed at length.
It's a more workaday style of foreign travel than the type of trip Trump has come to enjoy, which usually include lavish displays of welcome like royal parades or state banquets. It's also a practice in the kind of multilateralism that Trump and his aides have downplayed in favor of one-one-one negotiations with other countries.
The session's hosts help determine the agenda. Last year's meeting, in a rural Canadian riverside resort, focused on the environment and a proliferation of plastics in the ocean. A year earlier, the assembled leaders collectively worked to convince Trump to remain in the Paris climate accord (he withdrew a month later).
After those summits, Trump was irked at the lengthy discussions about the environment and oceans, the people familiar said, and felt he wasn't given enough room to tout his achievements as president. Inside the White House, it wasn't clear Trump would commit to attending the this year's G7 until late spring.