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As Macron heads to US, 'strong relationship' with Trump under test

Ersin Çelik
10:31 - 19/04/2018 Thursday
Update: 11:16 - 19/04/2018 Thursday
REUTERS
U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron
U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron

Macron's visit will be followed on April 27 by Merkel, whose relationship with Trump has been markedly more tense.

Before a phone conversation on March 1 to discuss the war in Syria and Russian nuclear arms, the two leaders had not spoken to each other for more than five months.

Rather than being subjected to a public dressing down, like Merkel over Germany's trade policy for example, Macron has been spared criticism.

The French and German leaders meet in Berlin on Thursday to ensure they are on same page on Iran and trade ahead of their trips, a presidential source said.

Macron's good relationship with Trump has had benefits. US companies overtook German ones as the top corporate investors in the French economy last year, with US investments up 26 percent.

But he appears to have limited the damage rather than be able to claim resounding successes.

Although he failed to convince Trump to stay in the Paris climate deal, the US president did not oppose Macron pushing for American firms and states to act on climate independently.

Macron has been worried about Trump feeling backed into a corner and has sensed an opportunity to sway US thinking and elevate France in global affairs, especially over Syria and the Middle East.

However, Trump's unpredictability means that nobody knows whether a Macron factor really does exist.

After French, British and US strikes on Syrian government targets last week, Macron boasted publicly that he had persuaded Trump to maintain US engagement in Syria for the long-term. Within hours, he was met with a rebuke by the White House.

"We've seen the decisions Trump made, but we don't know what decisions he could have taken if we hadn't had this dialogue," said a senior French official.

#US
#France
#Trump
#Emmanuel Macron
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