Macron arrives at White House for Ukraine talks with Trump

WASHINGTON: French President Emmanuel Macron arrived at the White House on Monday (Feb 24) for talks with US President Donald Trump expected to cover the prospects for ending the Ukraine war amid stark differences on how to proceed.

Macron became the first European leader to visit Trump since he regained power a month ago. The two leaders were to participate in a G7 call, hold bilateral talks and then preside over a joint press conference scheduled for 2pm local time.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is to visit Trump later in the week, amid alarm in Europe over Trump's hardening stance toward Ukraine and overtures to Moscow on the three-year conflict.

Macron and Starmer are expected to try to convince Trump not to rush to a ceasefire deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin at any cost, keep Europe involved and discuss military guarantees to Ukraine.

Trump and his team have been negotiating a revenue-sharing agreement with Ukraine to recoup some of the money that the previous Biden administration had sent to Kyiv in the form of weapons to repel Russia.

Trump said over the weekend he believed an agreement would be reached soon.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last Wednesday rejected US demands for US$500 billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the United States had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.

Macron is trying to capitalise on a relationship with Trump built during their first presidential terms. He has said agreeing to a bad deal would amount to a capitulation of Ukraine and would signal weakness to the United States' foes, including China and Iran.

"I will tell him: Deep down you cannot be weak in the face of President (Putin). It's not you, it's not what you're made of and it's not in your interests," he said in an hour-long question-and-answer session on social media ahead of Monday's visit to the White House.