Can Sir Keir Starmer pull off “a Macron” when he visits the White House on Thursday? That question will now follow him all the way to Washington, as he treads in footsteps of the French President who faced off with his American counterpart on Monday.
Whatever bouncer Trump threw at him, Emmanuel Macron dispatched it with deft, diplomatic skill. But the French leader’s experience shows that Starmer must be prepared for the unexpected, and ready to deliver a tour-de-force with style and élan, entirely on the fly.
The Prime Minister had hoped to become the first European leader to cross the threshold of the White House during President Trump’s second term in office. But that was before Trump, last week, described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “dictator”, began reanimating relations between the Oval Office and Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin, and threatened to upend 80 years of transatlantic alliances that have kept the peace in western Europe since 1945.
On Monday, Emmanuel Macron softened the ground for his British colleague, but also schooled him in how to handle the unpredictable American President.
Macron’s meetings started early in the morning when he joined the US leader in the Oval Office for a call with the other five G7 leaders to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
He returned to the White House later for bilateral Oval Office talks and lunch with his host. Then the two men engaged in their second media encounter of the day when Trump unexpectedly turned their morning photo opportunity into an impromptu press conference.
Macron’s strategy towards Trump was a cocktail comprising one part charm offensive, one part confrontation, and one part engagement. In the Oval Office, the French president waxed lyrical about his decision to invite Trump to attend the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris last December, an opportunity the President-elect eagerly grasped, and then spoke warmly about on two occasions during Monday’s public comments.
But then came the confrontation: Macron going to the mat, challenging Trump’s assertion that the United States should be front of the queue in efforts to secure “compensation” for the contributions it has made to Ukraine over the past three years. Macron boldly reminded Trump that Moscow, not Kyiv, is the aggressor in the conflict, and questioned the entire notion of the aggrieved party paying compensation for the war rather than the conflict’s architect.
Macron made his move just one hour after Trump blocked G7 leaders from issuing a collective statement slamming Russia for its war on Ukraine, and ordered the US Ambassador at the United Nations to vote “no” in Monday’s General Assembly vote condemning Putin’s aggression against the country.
“I support the idea to have Ukraine, first, being compensated, because they are the ones who lose a lot of their fellow citizens and [are] being destroyed by these attacks”, Macron explained to Trump. The United States and Ukraine’s European partners should come second in the queue, he argued, and “should be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia, because they are the ones” guilty of aggression.
Macron also insisted that discussions should include the use of Russia’s frozen assets to pay compensation to Ukraine and its international supporters, a move that Trump opposes as he covets a burgeoning geopolitical and economic relationship with the Kremlin.
Trump argued that Putin had no objection to European peacekeepers taking up positions in Ukraine after any agreement was signed. But Kremlin officials then countered that claim, saying no specific conversation on the matter had occurred.
Macron’s main aim was to persuade Trump to offer security guarantees to underpin any peacekeeping operation involving European and non-European forces. Twice during the press conference, he referenced Starmer’s willingness to deploy UK peacekeepers to Ukraine, provided there is an American military “backstop”. Trump insisted “that won’t be a problem” but demurred on several occasions when reporters asked what the “backstop” might look like in practice.
The French President pointedly and repeatedly emphasised the need for “a measurable, verifiable” peace. He claimed that he and Trump “share the same vision”, and conceded that America’s allies were “well aware that Europeans need to do more for security and defence in Europe”. But he also pointedly articulated a view that now seems to be controversial in the new Washington: “This peace must not mean a surrender by Ukraine”, he warned Trump.
Trump’s next guest in Washington will be Starmer, unless Zelensky pips him to the post. The Ukrainian leader will, according to Trump, travel to Washington “either this week or next week” to sign an agreement sharing his country’s rare earth mineral wealth with Washington, though again it is unclear what security guarantees the White House is now offering to seal the deal.
No 10 can at least now study the Macron playbook, and decide whether Starmer should emulate the French leader’s efforts to woo and cajole his mercurial and quixotic American host. Macron left Washington believing that he had played Trump like a violin. But it will now fall to the UK Prime Minister to prove that he has the skill to complete the symphony.
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