gulfnews.com

Macron to clash with Trump over push to help Ukraine

Alongside Starmer, Macron is bringing together 37 countries in support for Kyiv

5 MIN READ

Keir Starmer hosts European Leaders for further talks on Peace in Ukraine.

Bloomberg

As President Donald Trump rattles US allies with his geopolitical maneuvers, the situation has helped one European leader return to the spotlight: Emmanuel Macron.

Hamstrung by the loss of a parliamentary majority after a disastrous snap election last summer, the French president has spent months tackling domestic crises. But as he prepares to meet European Union leaders at a summit in Brussels Thursday, the return of great-power politics has handed Macron a chance to shift gear as he brings together allies prepared to support Kyiv.

But that initiative is also setting Macron on course for a collision with Trump.

The US president is framing the ceasefire as a way to unlock new business and political cooperation with Russia. In return, Vladimir Putin in a Tuesday call with Trump demanded a complete halt to weapons supplies to Ukraine, a shift that would force Macron to effectively abandon his efforts to galvanize support for Kyiv.

One senior official from another major EU power on Tuesday insisted there is no way that European nations will comply with Putin’s conditions.

French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas said Wednesday that those conditions are “unrealistic” and Macron is speaking to Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on a daily basis as he seeks a path forward.

On Wednesday, Zelenskiy’s phone rang during a video briefing with reporters. “Emmanuel, sorry, I will call you later,” he told the caller and went on to explain that he was talking to journalists.

The Ukrainian leader said he plans to travel to France next week to discuss the potential deployment of foreign peacekeepers in Ukraine. For now, there is a “need to work out the general vision,” he told the reporters.

With Trump’s push for a rapid ceasefire gathering pace in recent weeks, Macron has hosted military chiefs of more than 30 countries and defense ministers of Europe’s main military powers, as well as ad hoc groups of European leaders. Alongside UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he is bringing together 37 countries preparing military support for Kyiv after a ceasefire is reached.

“Global affairs gave Macron his credibility back,” said Melody Mock-Gruet, a political expert who teaches at Sciences Po in Paris.

The Macron-Starmer initiative would see European militaries, with participation from the Commonwealth and Asia, contribute either funding, troops, aircraft or naval vessels to help protect Ukraine from the prospect of further Kremlin attacks. While not every Ukraine ally is on board, recent meetings suggest the idea is gaining traction.

In parallel, European nations are trying to engineer a sea change in their military capabilities in order present a convincing deterrent to future Russian aggression independently from the US. European allies fear an unjust and unstable peace deal could be forced on Ukraine that would give Putin a chance to rebuild his military for another attack.

German lawmakers passed a landmark spending package Tuesday that is set to unlock hundreds of billions of euros in debt financing for defense and infrastructure after decades of frugality. Macron has opened discussions with EU allies about extending the protection of France’s nuclear arsenal and he met with outgoing German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as well as his successor, Friedrich Merz, in Berlin Tuesday to coordinate their positions ahead of Thursday’s talks.

As European leaders struggle to keep track of the White House’s thinking and to plot their own response, Macron’s longstanding relationship with Trump gives him an important role. Following an EU summit earlier this month, the French president, who’s known Trump since his first term, debriefed his US counterpart for more than half an hour, according to one French official.

Macron believes that Trump values personal connections, people familiar with his thinking said. The French president has told aides that although Trump is not a good listener, if you find the right argument, you can get his attention, the people added.

As western leaders try to respond to Trump’s efforts to remake the global order, that connection is helping to make Macron a reference point.

Mark Carney made Paris his first foreign visit this week after taking office as Canada’s prime minister. Following discussions on support for Ukraine and the growing US tariff offensive, he said he wants to strengthen ties with “reliable allies.” Another leader from the Americas also reached out appealing to Macron to help them handle Trump, according to a person briefed on the discussions, who asked not to be named.

French voters too have welcomed Macron’s return to the international spotlight, boosting his approval ratings from a record low. A poll by Ifop for Ouest-France showed Macron’s popularity rose to 31% in March, up seven points from the previous month and close to the level it held before last year’s parliamentary election.

“We’ve always been on the side of peace,” Macron said Tuesday during a press conference with Scholz in Berlin. “We must not give in to any inversion of values or rhetoric. This is the historic role of France and Germany and the whole of Europe — at side of the Ukrainians.”

Yet Macron’s attempts to consolidate his relationship with the White House faces serious crosswinds. One French lawmaker from the center-left opposition this month said the US should return the Statue of Liberty, since the country no longer shares their values.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt replied that the French should be grateful to the US that they aren’t speaking German, a reference to the liberation of France in World War II.

In terms of hard power, the US has already shut off the supply of weapons and military intelligence to Kyiv once, following a blow up between Trump and Zelenskiy in the Oval Office last month.

In any context, deploying European troops in Ukraine would carry serious risks, one European official said, but all the more so if that move helped Zelenskiy to resist US pressure to settle with Putin.

It’s also unclear how France will pay for an increased commitment to Ukraine. Macron has ruled out tax increases and Finance Minister Eric Lombard has insisted the country can’t afford to increase borrowing. Lombard will meet Thursday with banks and insurance companies to discuss ways to boost defense investment.

“Things are very fragile for Macron,” Mock-Gruet, the analyst, said.

Macron has been calling for a dramatic expansion of Europe’s military capabilities since he came to power in 2017. But for years the French president had failed to rally partners to action. His diagnosis has now become mainstream in European capitals as the scramble to adjust to a rapidly changing outlook.

“It’s good to have a character like Macron that is willing to take these calls even if those decisions could and should have been made much sooner in the Ukraine war,” said Famke Krumbmüller, a geostrategy consultant at EY.

Get the latest news and updates straight to your inbox