America First peace policy seizes stage as Macron, Starmer meet with Trump in D.C. 

French President Emmanuel Macron met with President Donald Trump in Washington Monday as breathless European leaders try to catch up with Trump’s Ukraine-Russia peace blitz.  

Macron described his talks with Trump as “very friendly, as always.” 

“We did the G7 videoconference in the Oval office and then we had a first discussion, and I come back shortly,” the French president told reporters outside the White House, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.  

Later this week U.K Prime Minister Kier Starmer is expected to visit the president at the White House.  

The only item on the agenda for both European leaders at the White House is the war in Ukraine.  

The meetings were hastily arranged after Trump administration heavyweights Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff met with their Russian counterparts to discuss an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

The meetings pointedly excluded both Ukraine and allies.   

Extra urgency was added over the weekend for France and the U.K. as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said a U.S.-Russia agreement to end the war brokered by Trump could come as early as this week.  

“The president, his team, are very much focused on continuing negotiations with both sides of this war to end the conflict, and the president is very confident we can get it done this week,” Leavitt told reporters.  

In a series of foreign policy pronouncements since Trump’s inauguration, administration officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Rubio have said ending the war in Ukraine is a top priority.  

Trump officials have said it’s time for European partners in the NATO alliance to defend themselves as the U.S. switches its defense posture to the Indo-Pacific region and the threat Communist China poses.  

The announcements, and the strident, confident tone taken by the administration has left Macron, Starmer and a host of European leaders stunned.  

“They could not have expected that somehow within the United States would emerge this ultra-nationalist coalition of forces that would actually challenge Europe’s voice in world affairs in such a stark and strong way,” Philip Golub, a professor in international relations at the American University in Paris told Reuters about the Trump defense realignment 

If not, then the European leaders haven’t been listening to Trump.  

Trump has complained the U.K. and France have done nothing to end the war in Ukraine, which U.S. leaders are increasingly convinced is unwinnable by either side. Trump also has said he’s “sick” of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not negotiating.  

“He’s been at the meetings for three years and nothing got done, so I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings, to be honest with you,” Trump told Fox News. “He’s been there for three years. He makes it very hard to make deals.” 

The rhetoric toward and exclusions of the main players may be designed by Trump to get the two key European allies to step up and offer a European-centered security solution to Ukraine that won’t require the deployment of U.S. troops, money or NATO guarantees.  

Reuters reports French and British talks have centered on “providing air, maritime, land and cyber support that would aim to deter Russia from launching any future attacks.” Also on the table are possible future deployments of “peacekeepers” by European countries.  

But even on that the U.K.’s and France’s commitment seems indefinite and vague, with any troops to be kept far from the Ukraine-Russian border, said Reuters.  

Vague and indefinite are also good ways of describing the argument Macron was to employ with Trump to slow down negotiations to end the war.  

“What I am going to do is that I am going to tell him basically, you cannot be weak in the face of President Putin. It’s not you, it’s not your trademark,” Macron said on social media prior to the White House meeting, according to CNN.  

Starmer has admitted the velocity of Trump’s foreign policy changes is going to be difficult to slow down.  

“President Trump has changed the global conversation over the last few weeks,” said Starmer, according to the BBC. “And it has created an opportunity. Now, we must get the fundamentals right.” 

The BBC also reports the only thing Starmer is offering Trump is more sanctions on Russia and a request that U.S. troops “backstop” Europe against a Russian invasion of Ukraine, something Trump officials have vowed not to do.