President Joe Biden phoned President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday to smooth over their frayed relationship after the United States effectively sank their submarine deal with Australia.
“The two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefitted from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners,” a diplomatic White House readout of the call read.
The White House said Biden called Macron at his request.
Macron agreed to send the French Ambassador back to Washington the following week and the two leaders planned a meeting in Europe at the end of October.
The White House said Biden reaffirmed the strategic importance of France and the rest of Europe as he planned strategic deployments in the Indo-Pacific.
France was furious after Biden worked secretly to create a multibillion dollar deal with Australia to sell them nuclear submarines. Because of the agreement, France lost out on their own submarine deal with Australia worth up to $90 billion.
France was also surprised to learn about the deal in the media, rather from United States officials.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian criticized Biden’s actions as “brutal, unilateral, and unpredictable” and said he was “angry and bitter” about how it took place.
Macron recalled the French ambassador to the United States in protest of Biden’s botched diplomacy.
The French president was also critical of Biden in an August call with him on the issue of Afghanistan.
In a statement after the call, the French government noted that Macron pointedly spoke to Biden about a “collective moral responsibility” to the Afghan people the importance of not abandoning Afghan citizens who helped allied forces.
“We cannot abandon them,” the readout wrote.
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