President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron ahead of the Notre Dame Cathedral reopening ceremony lasted just over half an hour at the Élysée Palace.
Trump and Zelensky were originally set to hold separate consecutive talks with Macron.
Remember: The United States is the single largest provider of military assistance to Ukraine in the country’s fight against Russia. Trump has cast doubts on continued US aid to Kyiv and has repeatedly claimed the war would not have started if he had been president. In July, he said he could settle the war in one day, without saying how he would do so.
Zelensky said at the end of November he wanted to work “directly” with Trump and was open to his ideas.
He also said Russia’s war with his country could end next year and that he was awaiting Trump’s proposals on resolving the conflict.
The two met at Trump’s New York base in Trump Tower in September. Zelensky characterized his conversations with Trump during that visit as “warm, good, constructive.”
Trump and Macron tout relationship ahead of meeting in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed US President-elect Donald Trump to the Elysee Palace on Saturday with the pair’s now-customary grappling handshakes, as Trump visited for a meeting ahead of the reopening ceremony for the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Speaking to reporters before they met privately, Macron and Trump both expressed optimism about the future of their relationship and fondly recalled Trump’s first time in office — a broadly friendly but occasionally turbulent period in US-France relations.
Macron, whose government is under threat of collapse after a parliamentary revolt, grinned throughout Trump’s remarks and audibly agreed with Trump’s assessment.
“We had a good time together and we had a lot of, a lot of success, really great success working together on defense and offense, too,” Trump continued. “And it certainly seems like the world is going a little crazy right now.”
As the men met in Paris, with an estimated 50 fellow world leaders either in town or en route, Bashar al-Assad’s Russian- and Iranian-aligned regime in Syria appeared to be nearing collapse, with rebel forces threatening to encircle the capital city of Damascus.
Macron called Trump’s visit “a great honor for French people,” then recalled Trump’s response to the Notre Dame fire five years earlier.
