Key points
- Starmer expresses support for Zelensky
- Will tell Trump he can’t be weak with Putin: Macron
- US pushes to fast-track Ukraine deal
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet in Washington with the leader of France on Monday and of Britain on Thursday next week, the White House said, as Europe scrambles to respond to his Ukraine war shift.
“Next Monday, the president will host France’s President Emmanuel Macron, and on Thursday the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will visit the White House as well,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday.
“New era”
President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that France was entering a “new era” and that he planned to tell US President Donald Trump he could not “be weak” with Vladimir Putin.
Macron spoke to the French ahead of a planned visit to the White House to meet Trump next week, as Europe scrambles to respond to his Ukraine war shift.
“I’m going to tell him: ‘You can’t be weak with President Putin. That’s not who you are, it’s not your trademark, it’s not in your interest'”, Macron said as he answered questions from the French public on social media.
Trump will meet in Washington with Macron on Monday and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday next week, the White House said.
Trump has sent shock waves around Europe by saying he is ready to resume diplomacy with Putin to end Russia’s three-year war against Ukraine, over the heads of European countries and Kyiv.
In recent days French officials have said the French public needed to understand the magnitude of the threat coming from the Kremlin.
Macron told reporters earlier this week: “Russia poses an existential threat to Europeans.”
On Thursday, the French president said that France needed to beef up security amid the shock policy shift in US-Russia relations.
“I am convinced that we are entering a new era. It will impose choices on us,” Macron said. “We Europeans must increase our war effort.”
Starmer supports Ukraine
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer Wednesday assured Volodymyr Zelensky of his support, after US President Donald Trump had called the Ukrainian leader a dictator, his office said.
“The Prime Minister spoke to President Zelenskyy this evening and stressed the need for everyone to work together,” said a Downing Street statement. Starmer “expressed his support for President Zelensky as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader and said that it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during wartime as the UK did during World War II.”
“The Prime Minister reiterated his support for the US-led efforts to get a lasting peace in Ukraine that deterred Russia from any future aggression,” it said.
