Nothing like that happened in this go-round (at least as of this writing. Sitting in his cabin on Air Force One for an eight-hour flight home, Trump had ample time to grab his phone and unburden himself of any grievances he might have suppressed over the long weekend). “They’re going out of their way to accommodate his [Trump’s] whims and wishes,” Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me.

Still, Trump’s counterparts made clear that if he wasn’t willing to be a partner, they might go it alone. Trump has taken a hard-line position on Iran, pulling out of an agreement reached last year by the Obama administration aimed at curbing the country’s nuclear-weapons program. He has hit the Islamic Republic with rounds of sanctions, part of a pressure campaign that has weakened its economy. After Iran downed a U.S. drone in June, Trump came close to ordering a retaliatory military strike.

But over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron, acting independently, invited the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to the summit for private talks aimed at defusing tensions with the West. Trump didn’t talk to Zarif, but Macron did. The French president remains committed to the nuclear agreement that Trump has spurned, and wants to ensure that Iran respects the deal’s provisions, a French diplomat told The Guardian.

At a joint news conference today, Trump and Macron sought to downplay any differences over Iran.

“I did it on my own,” Macron said of Zarif’s appearance at the summit, adding that he kept Trump fully briefed on the diplomatic overture to Iran.

Trump had also sought to persuade his G7 counterparts to readmit Russia to the club, from which it was suspended following its annexation in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimea. The leaders argued about it during a dinner Saturday night. Trump’s view is that Russia’s presence would be helpful in resolving disputes.

“A lot of people say having Russia, which is a power, having them inside the room is better than having them outside the room,” Trump said at the news conference with Macron.

That argument fell flat. Even his newest G7 friend, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was unmoved. “We are opposed because we see no evidence from recent Russian behavior which would warrant readmission to the G7,” a British official told me. “There has been a pattern of malign behavior from Russia—whether it’s 2016 [U.S.] election interference, the chemical attack in Salisbury [England], the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, or actions supporting the Assad regime [in Syria]—which is at odds with the principles and broader ideas around the G7.”

Read more: Boris Johnson’s balancing act

Next year, Trump may have more sway. The G7 will take place in the U.S., and Trump, as host, is free to invite guests, including Putin.