“No, in fact, to be honest, we paid,” Macron said. As in the case of the United States, he said, there was a mix of subsidies, loans and loan guarantees. “We provided real money, to be clear,” he said.
Mr. Trump, smiling, made a skeptical face and nodded as if to say he didn’t buy him.
Mr. Trump, who was unable to brandish the end of the war in 24 hours or before his inauguration, as he promised to do on the countryside track, said that the talks he had started with Mr. Putin could end the war “In a few weeks, if we are intelligent.” He added: “If we are not intelligent, it will continue and we will lose young people and beautiful people”.
The president underlined his request that Ukraine signed hundreds of billions of dollars in mineral rights to reimburse US military aid, to which Zelensky resisted. The Treasury Secretary Scott Beesent, however, said that US negotiators and Ukrainians were “very close” to an agreement, on the “line of a Yard” and Mr. Trump said that Mr. Zelensky could come to Washington to sign it not just this week or the next.
The return to the power of Mr. Trump is sedating relationships with European allies while threatening to impose rates on their consumer goods, he asks that military expenses also increase beyond a previous goal and breaks with them on Ukraine. The reports were inflamed by a speech in Munich by vice -president JD Vance, who suggested that the greatest threat to security to European nations was not Russia or China, but their political and cultural policies.
Macron organized two European leaders to formulate a plan to deal with a America that seems to move the favor from its traditional allies to Russia. But he then rushed to Washington for a quick encounter organized with Trump to fortify the president in negotiations on the fate of Ukraine.