Macron visits Trump and expects returns
France to use rapport with White House to benefit Europe
FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron landed in Washington yesterday aiming to use his rapport with President Donald Trump to take the edge off the latter’s “America First” foreign policy, for Europe at least.
As 40-year-old Macron arrived for the first state visit of Trump’s presidency, the US leader is threatening to upend the global trading system with tariffs on China, maybe Europe too, and to ditch the Iran nuclear accord, a key plank of western policy for containing military tensions in the Middle East.
Macron has been building bridges with Trump for a year. Now he’s looking for something in return.
“Both of us are probably mavericks,” the French president said in a Fox News interview taped in Paris on Friday and broadcast Sunday.
“We have a very special relationship,” he said.
While Macron has had more success than most in getting through to Trump, his record of securing policy concessions is patchy. He pointed to this month’s missile strikes against Syria as a victory for French diplomacy, but he failed to keep the US in the Paris climate accord and his aides last week played down expectations that he might persuade Trump to change course on other issues.
Last night the two leaders had dinner with their wives at George Washington’s estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. Macron presented his host with an oak tree from a forest where US troops fought to defend France during World War I.
Tonight will be a state dinner at the White House. On the final day of his trip Macron will address a joint session of Congress – in English – and meet students at George Washington University.
Macron’s chance to turn the bonhomie into policy substance will come during extended talks today.
French officials say they’ve been briefed by their White House counterparts that Trump still hasn’t decided whether he’ll stick with the Iran nuclear deal.
The agreement was the signature foreign-policy achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency and perhaps the most intense US diplomatic push since the aftermath of World War I.
Trump, 71, is a long-time critic of the accord. He wants more action to stop Iran developing its ballistic missile programme and expanding its influence in the Middle East – issues that aren’t covered in the current agreement.
Macron said he wanted to extend the deal, which he described as imperfect, to include ballistic missiles and “regional containment”. He said he hopes Trump upholds the agreement because it serves as a hedge against a “North Korean type of situation” of prolonged threats between nuclear powers.
“I think the US today has a very strong role to play for peace in different regions of the world, and especially the Mideast,” Macron said.
“The French president will have prepared a few ‘fixes’ to the Iran deal, climate accord, and trade issues to deliver Trump something he thinks is a win,” Brett Bruen, a former State department official under Obama and George W Bush, said.
“Macron has mastered the art of the deal when it comes to Trump – forget about the substance, focus on his feelings, furnishing him with flattery and a touch of French flair.”
Trump’s experience sending his forces into combat alongside their French allies this month may strengthen Macron’s chances of making progress on other issues, analysts said.
France’s position as the EU’s foremost military power gives Macron an advantage over Chancellor Angela Merkel, who’s derided by the Trump administration for Germany’s reluctance to join military action, its low defence spending, and its trade surplus with the US.
Trade will be Macron’s other challenge. He was in Berlin last week to coordinate his arguments with Merkel before the German leader visits the White House on Friday.
Trump wants the Europeans to ease the barriers to US exporters seeking access to their markets.
Macron and Merkel will both argue that unilateral moves on trade policy are destructive, as they try to persuade Trump not to sabotage the World Trade Organisation’s rules-based trading system.
“I hope he will not implement these new tariffs and he will decide for an exemption for the European Union,” Macron said. – Bloomberg