Macron heads to the US for ‘tough talks’
HE IS THE FIRST FRENCH LEADER TO BE INVITED FOR TWO US STATE VISITS
French President Emmanuel Macron headed to Washington yesterday to discuss a slew of issues with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, ranging from aligning policy on Russia’s attack of Ukraine to easing trade spats.
Macron, in a rare honour the first French leader to be invited for two US state visits, can look forward to another 21-gun salute and ostentatious White House dinner that ex-president Donald Trump provided in 2018.
His travelling entourage of foreign, defence and finance ministers, as well as business leaders and astronauts, illustrates the range of transatlantic cooperation Paris hopes to push forward.
But one senior American official told AFP that while there might be concrete “progress” in some fields, “this visit is about the personal relationship, the alliance relationship” with France.
“There are enormous opportunities to cooperate between the Biden administration and the Macron government,” said Martin Quencez, deputy director of the Paris office of think tank GMF.
“But for various reasons, cooperation and coordination haven’t gone as far as one might imagine”.
The tone between Paris and Washington has calmed since a year ago, when the US snatched a lucrative contract to supply Australia with submarines — and launched a new US-UKAustralia alliance in the Pacific, dubbed AUKUS, which excluded France.
Strategic meet
This week’s visit could be seen as the capstone of US efforts to placate a Nato ally, which is one of the strongest voices calling for European “strategic autonomy”, said Celia Belin, a researcher at the Brookings Institution.
As things stand, however, “we are not allies on the same page”, one adviser to Macron told AFP, promising “challenging” talks with Biden.
Despite his support for Kyiv, Macron’s insistence on continuing to talk with Moscow throughout Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised American hackles.
However, a senior Biden administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that even with the disagreements, the transatlantic partnership remains strong.