During a meeting on the war in Ukraine with several European leaders at the White House, Donald Trump was surprised by a microphone remained open. He confided in French President Emmanuel Macron about Vladimir Putin. “I think he wants to agree for me, you understand?” As crazy as it may seem, “whispered the American president to the French head of state, reports CNN.
This confidence took place for a few moments before a multilateral meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky. Donald Trump spoke of the possibility of organizing a trilateral summit with his Russian counterpart and the Ukrainian president, whom he considers decisive to put an end to the conflict. He estimated that “good chances of putting an end to war” would once appear this organized meeting.
Trois or four summit
The American president also repeated, in front of the press, that it was not necessary to go through a prior cease-fire, recalls BFMTV: “I would like them to stop fighting, but strategically, it could be a disadvantage for a camp or the other. On the French side, Emmanuel Macron insisted that a possible security agreement could not be limited to the three protagonists. The head of state defended the idea of a quadrilateral negotiation including Europeans, because “when we talk about security guarantees, the question is that of the European continent as a whole”.
These exchanges illustrate the fracture lines between Western partners: when Trump relies on his personal relationship with Vladimir Putin to snatch a compromise, Emmanuel Macron pleads for a wider frame, encompassing Europeans directly affected by the security of the continent.
