ROME \u2014 Working to patch things up with an old ally, President Joe Biden told French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday that the U.S. had been \u201cclumsy\u201d in its handling of a secret U.S.-British submarine deal with Australia, an arrangement that left France in the lurch and rattled Europe\u2019s faith in American loyalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden and Macron greeted each other with handshakes and shoulder grabs before their first face-to-face meeting since the deal was publicly announced in September, marking the latest American effort to try to smooth hurt French sensibilities. Biden didn\u2019t formally apologize to Macron, but conceded the U.S. should not have caught its oldest ally by surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think what happened was \u2014 to use an English phrase \u2014 what we did was clumsy,\u201d Biden said, adding the submarine deal \u201cwas not done with a lot of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was under the impression that France had been informed long before,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S.-led submarine contract supplanted a prior French deal to supply Australia with its own diesel-powered submarines. The U.S. argued that the move, which will arm the Pacific ally with higher-quality nuclear-powered boats, will better enable Australia to contain Chinese encroachment in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macron said the two allies would develop \u201cstronger cooperation\u201d to prevent a similar misunderstanding from happening again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe clarified together what we had to clarify,\u201d he added, when asked if U.S.-France relations had been repaired. \u201cWhat really matters now is what we will do together in the coming weeks, the coming months, the coming years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To that end, Macron\u2019s goal for the meeting was securing greater U.S. intelligence and military cooperation supporting French anti-terrorist operations in the Sahel region of Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macron praised Biden\u2019s \u201cvery operational, very concrete decisions\u201d in recent weeks that helped the French military fighting Islamic extremists in the Sahel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden and Macron also discussed new ways to cooperate in the Indo-Pacific, a move meant to soothe French tempers over being excised from the U.S.-U.K.-Australia partnership that accompanied the submarine deal. Other topics on the agenda include China, Afghanistan and Iran, as well as climate change, before next week\u2019s UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The French, who lost out on more than $60 billion from the submarine deal, have argued that the Biden administration at the highest levels misled them about the talks with Australia and even levied criticism that Biden was adopting the tactics of his bombastic predecessor, Donald Trump. France is especially angry over being kept in the dark about a major geopolitical shift, and having its interests in the Indo-Pacific \u2014 where France has territories with 2 million people and 7,000 troops \u2014 ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The row challenged Biden\u2019s carefully honed image of working to stabilize and strengthen the trans-Atlantic alliance after Trump\u2019s presidency, as France for the first time in some 250 years of diplomatic relations pulled its ambassador to the U.S. in protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. officials, from Biden on down, have worked for weeks to try to soothe tensions, though not so much for Biden to visit France himself to try to reset relations with Paris. Instead, he\u2019s dispatched Vice President Kamala Harris for a visit in early Novembe r.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a concession by the White House, the Biden-Macron meeting in Rome was organized and hosted by France at Villa Bonaparte, the French embassy to the Holy See, which Macron\u2019s office called \u201cpolitically important.\u201d Meanwhile, first lady Jill Biden was to host Brigitte Macron for a \u201cbilateral engagement\u2019 Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden also praised France as an \u201cextremely valued partner\u201d and a \u201cpower in and of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is too much that we have done together, suffered together, celebrated together and valued together for anything to … break this up,\u201d Biden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the two leaders would \u201cliterally cover the waterfront of issues facing the U.S.-France alliance,\u201d including counterterrorism in the Middle East, China and trade and economic issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe feel very good about the intensive engagement that we\u2019ve had with France over the course of the past few weeks,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following their meeting, Biden and Macron were expected to issue a joint statement outlining areas of mutual cooperation, including the Indo-Pacific and economic and technological cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the U.S. focuses on Asia, Macron is seeking to bolster Europe\u2019s independent defense capabilities, with more military equipment and military operations abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France is also determined to put \u201cmuscle\u201d into Europe\u2019s geopolitical strategy toward an increasingly assertive China, France\u2019s ambassador to Australia, Jean-Pierre Thebault, told The Associated Press earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
France wants Western allies to \u201cdivide up roles\u201d instead of competing against one another, and for the Americans to be \u201callies as loyal and as available for their European partners as always,\u201d according to the top French official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biden and Macron greeted each other with handshakes and shoulder grabs before their first face-to-face meeting since the deal was publicly announced in September, marking the latest American effort to try to smooth hurt French sensibilities. Biden didn\u2019t formally apologize to Macron, but conceded the U.S. should not have caught its oldest ally by surprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":60007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":46,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,29,46,147,11,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3272,1311],"class_list":["post-27845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-europe","category-feindef","category-global","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"UZZBCOBKU5A7NMVSMXZO7JEAKM","arc_canonical_url":"\/global\/europe\/2021\/10\/29\/biden-tells-macron-us-clumsy-in-australian-submarine-deal\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n