French President, Emmanuel Macron on Monday, visited the White House for talks with US President Donald Trump.
The visit is expected to cover discussions on ending the Ukraine war amid differences on how to proceed.
Macron is the first European leader to visit Trump since his second return to the White House a month ago.
The two leaders were to participate in a G7 call, hold bilateral talks and then preside over a joint press conference scheduled for 2 p.m. EST.
The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is also expected to visit Trump later in the week, following alarm in Europe over Trump’s hardening stance toward Ukraine and overtures to Moscow on the three-year conflict.
Macron and Starmer are expected to try to convince Trump not to rush to a ceasefire deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin at any cost, keep Europe involved and discuss military guarantees to Ukraine.
Recall that Trump and his team have been negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement with Ukraine to recoup some of the money that the previous Biden administration had sent to Kyiv in the form of weapons to repel Russia.
The US President, over the weekend, expressed the belief that an agreement would be reached soon.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last Wednesday rejected U.S. demands for $500 billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the United States had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.
Macron is trying to capitalize on a relationship with Trump built during their first presidential terms. He has said agreeing to a bad deal would amount to a capitulation of Ukraine and would signal weakness to the United States’ foes, including China and Iran.
