The two exchanged compliments before answering questions from the press, with Trump saying he had a “very special relationship” with the French president. The U.S. president later shared an anecdote about a dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower that made both leaders laugh.
Trump said he was confident Ukraine would soon finalize an agreement in which Kyiv would cede some of its critical raw materials to America, stating that the U.S. would “get our money back over a period of time.”
With Macron seated beside him, Trump groused about the amount of aid the U.S. had already sent to Ukraine, once again inflating the amount by nearly $200 billion.”We’re in for $350 billion,” Trump said. “How we got there, I don’t know. We had nothing to show for it.”
Congress, in fact, has approved an estimated $120 billion in aid for Ukraine which has enabled Ukraine’s army to beat back Russia’s offensive and hold onto most of its land over the last three years of war.
“It was the Biden administration’s fault,” Trump said, stating — falsely, again — that all Europe’s aid to Ukraine was done “as a loan.”