Trump corrected by Emmanuel Macron on Europe’s funding for Kyiv

The meeting between the two men otherwise appeared friendly, and at a later press conference, Macron said he believed the US was willing to act in solidarity with Europe to bring about lasting peace in Ukraine.

However, in a strong warning about the terms of any deal, Macron warned: “This peace must not mean a surrender of Ukraine, it must not mean a ceasefire without guarantees … We want peace swiftly, but we don’t want an agreement that is weak.”

He also disagreed with Trump’s insistence the US would not put troops on the ground, even in a peacekeeping mission. “This is why I think we should never say I will never send any boots on the ground, because you give a blank cheque to violate any type of commitment,” Macron said.

Trump said he and Macron agreed on “many” aspects of the situation but continued to assert Europe was only loaning support to Ukraine and said it was his duty to recoup the “colossal” losses American taxpayers had incurred in defending a foreign country.

“My administration is making a decisive break with the foreign policy failures of the past administration, and frankly the past,” Trump said. “We are forging a new path that promotes peace around the world.”

He also reiterated his trust in Putin. “I think it’s very much to the benefit of Russia to make a deal, and I feel that we’ll do that,” Trump said. “That’s what I do, I do deals. My whole life is deals. That’s all I know is deals. I know when somebody wants to make [one] and when somebody doesn’t.”

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Trump also invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House to sign an agreement expected to allow the US to profit from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals and oil and gas in return for past and ongoing defence support.

The deal to “get our money back” was close, Trump said, an assessment also made by Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister, Olha Stefanishyna, in a post on X.

Trump’s invitation to Zelensky came less than a week after he branded the wartime leader a “dictator without elections” and a “modestly successful comedian” who had done a terrible job as president, echoing Kremlin propaganda points.

Zelensky declared martial law after Putin’s invasion, suspending elections. He has promised to hold elections once the war ends, but at the weekend said he was prepared to step down immediately in return for Ukrainian membership of the NATO security alliance.

At the UN General Assembly, the resolution condemning Russia passed with the support of 93 states – among them Australia, Canada, Britain, France, Germany and other Western allies – to applause from the gallery.

In opposing the motion, the US ultimately sided with Russia and 16 other countries, including Belarus, North Korea, Israel and Sudan. However, 65 countries abstained, marking a downturn in explicit support for Ukraine compared to previous votes when more than 140 nations condemned Russia and called for its withdrawal.

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The US also ended up abstaining from its own motion urging an end to the war – without mentioning Russia’s aggression – after European nations successfully amended it to note “the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation”.

The US argued calling out Russia’s antagonism meant pursuing “a war of words rather than an end to the war”, and won support for its preferred neutral wording in the more powerful UN Security Council, where it has veto power.

In her remarks, US deputy ambassador to the United Nations Dorothy Shea acknowledged Russia’s “blatant violations of the UN charter”, noting it had been condemned repeatedly in UN motions since Putin invaded Crimea in 2014.

But “those resolutions have failed to stop the war”, Shea said. “The attempt to add this language detracts from what we are trying to achieve with [our] forward-looking resolution.”

With AP

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