Trump and Macron discuss Ukraine at the White House

Amid sharp disagreements over how to continue, French President Emmanuel Macron joined U.S. President Donald Trump in discussions on Monday that were intended to address the possibilities for resolving the war in Ukraine.

Since Trump’s return to power a month ago, Macron became the first European leader to meet the president. The two presidents participated in a video conference with other G7 leaders over Ukraine during his one-hour and forty-five-minute morning session at the White House.

When Macron walked back to the Blair House guest house after leaving the White House, he described Trump’s reception as “very good, very friendly.”

“We had the video conference in the Oval office with the G7,” stated Trump.

Later, at 2 p.m. EST, the two leaders were to undertake bilateral discussions before hosting a joint news conference.

Amid European concern over Trump’s toughening posture toward Ukraine and his overtures to Moscow on the three-year conflict, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is scheduled to visit Trump later this week.

Macron and Starmer are scheduled to discuss military assurances to Ukraine, keep Europe involved, and attempt to persuade Trump not to rush into a ceasefire agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin at any cost.

In order to recover some of the funds that the former Biden administration supplied to Kyiv in the form of weaponry to stave off Russia, Trump and his staff have been discussing a revenue-sharing arrangement with Ukraine.

Over the weekend, Trump expressed his belief that a deal will be achieved shortly.

Ukraine. Last Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected U.S. demands that Ukraine pay $500 billion in mineral resources to Washington in order to reimburse Washington for wartime help, claiming that the United States has not provided nearly that much thus far and that the deal contains no explicit security assurances.

Macron is attempting to take advantage of a rapport that was established between them during their first periods in office. According to him, accepting a terrible agreement would be a symbol of weakness to the United States’ enemies, such as China and Iran, and would amount to Ukraine’s submission.

“I’ll remind him that you can’t be weak in the face of President Putin. During an hour-long social media Q&A session before to Monday’s visit to the White House, he stated, “It’s not you, it’s not what you’re made of, and it’s not in your interests.”