French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will travel to Washington to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The visits come as a transatlantic dividing line over the war in Ukraine has formed within NATO after Trump began negotiations with the Kremlin and branded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a “dictator.”
The French and British leaders are expected to try to convince their American counterpart not to rush to a ceasefire deal with Moscow and push for Europeans and Ukraine to have a seat at the table.
Macron has said agreeing to a bad deal that would amount to a Ukrainian surrender would signal weakness to Washington’s international enemies, including Beijing and Tehran.
“I will tell him: deep down, you cannot be weak in the face of president Putin. It’s not you, it’s not what you’re made of, and it’s not in your interests. How can you then be credible in the face of China if you’re weak in the face of Putin?” he said during an hour-long answer and question session on social media ahead of Monday’s visit to the White House.
Starmer, who has also warned that the end of the war cannot be a “temporary pause before Putin attacks again,” will be in the U.S. capital on Thursday.
He said on Sunday that there can be no talks about Ukraine’s future without the participation of Kyiv.
“Nobody wants the bloodshed to continue. Nobody, least of all the Ukrainians,” he told the Scottish Labour Party conference in Glasgow.
“But after everything that they have suffered, after everything that they have fought for, there could be no discussion about Ukraine without Ukraine, and the people of Ukraine must have a long-term secure future.”
UK Security Minister Dan Jarvis told the BBC on Monday that Starmer hopes his discussions with Trump in Washington will “lead to a negotiated peace settlement in Ukraine.”
Jarvis added: “We have a special relationship with the United States, we have a shared national security interest, we want to work together to grow our economies. So these are important discussions that the prime minister will be having with president Trump.
“It’s a very good opportunity to look at what more we can do to put pressure on Russia and to seek to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a conclusion.”
Speaking on a Fox News podcast on Friday, Trump said Macron and Starmer had not “done anything” to end the war, saying they had had “no meetings with Russia,” however he went on to call Macron “a friend of mine” and described Starmer as “a very nice guy.”
Britain and France are both keen to show Washington they are ready to take on a bigger burden for European security.
The only two Western European nuclear powers are firming up ideas with allies for military guarantees for Kyiv, and they will hope to persuade Trump to provide American assurances in any post-ceasefire deal.
Those attending included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Antonio Costa and the leaders of Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Norway, Spain, and Sweden.
In addition, Albania, Britain, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Japan, Moldova, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and Turkey’s leaders spoke via video link.
