Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the US would oppose "antagonistic" language toward Russia when Group of Seven foreign ministers meet in Canada this week.

"Ultimately, we can't sign on to any communique that's not consistent with our position to bring both sides to the table," Rubio told reporters as he flew to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for talks with Ukraine.

The position is not about "taking anyone's side, but because we feel like antagonistic language sometimes makes it harder to bring parties to the table", Rubio said

Rubio acknowledged that the other members of the club of wealthy democracies – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan – felt differently.

Donald Trump Trump signs order marking Women’s History Month – minus trans women – and the internet has thoughts

But he said of the US: "We're the only ones right now that seem to be in a position to make talks like that possible."

President Donald Trump has sharply shifted the position of the US, which last month voted with Russia and against most of its Western allies on a UN resolution that avoided calling on Moscow to withdraw fully from territory it has seized.

Rubio is in Jeddah to sound out a Ukrainian delegation on their willingness to make concessions after Trump froze assistance to Kyiv following a confrontational meeting at the White House with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Canada, the current president of the G7, is hosting the foreign ministers' meeting in Charlevoix, Quebec, from Wednesday, just as Trump is putting intense pressure on the US neighbor and longstanding ally.

Trump has slapped damaging tariffs on Canada and mocked it as the "51st state", saying it unfairly relies on the US.

Rubio said he expected to discuss the tensions with his Canadian counterpart, Melanie Joly, but that the US and Canada still shared "a lot of common interests" and were allies in NATO and NORAD, the North American air defense command.

"Our obligation is to try to the extent possible to not allow everything we work on together to be impacted negatively by the things we disagree on right now," Rubio said.