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U.S. President Donald Trump talks to German Chancellor Angela Merkel before the first working session of the G20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017.
France’s Macron had initially sought to persuade the Trump administration to abandon its combative stance on both trade and the Iran nuclear accord. However, some analysts questioned whether his tactile relationship with Trump had yielded any tangible results for the EU.
Eurasia Group’s Lichfield said Macron’s trip to the U.S. had no implications on the balance of power in Europe because the so-called “Trump-whisperer didn’t actually get him to agree to very much.”
In fact, Trump said Thursday that Macron “really came to recognize” his viewpoint on the Iran nuclear deal.
“He is viewing, I believe, Iran a lot differently than he did before he walked into the Oval Office and I think that’s important,” Trump said on Fox News. He went onto reaffirm his belief the Obama administration had agreed to a “horrible deal” to freeze Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Macron and Merkel’s trips to the U.S. come shortly before a May 12 deadline, set by Trump, to improve on an international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.
The president has threatened to pull out from the accord between Tehran and six world powers, signed in 2015 before he took office — unless Germany, France and Britain helped to agree on a follow-up pact by that date.
