France's Macron heads to US for a wide-ranging state visit
French President Emmanuel Macron heads to Washington
Tuesday to discuss a slew of issues with US counterpart Joe Biden,
ranging from aligning policy on Russia's invasion of Ukraine to easing
trade spats.
Macron,
in a rare honour the first French leader to be invited for two US state
visits, can look forward to another 21-gun salute and ostentatious
White House dinner that ex-president Donald Trump provided in 2018.
His
travelling entourage of foreign, defence and finance ministers, as well
as business leaders and astronauts, illustrates the range of
transatlantic cooperation Paris hopes to push forward.
But one
senior American official told AFP that while there might be concrete
"progress" in some fields, "this visit is about the personal
relationship, the alliance relationship" with France.
"There are
enormous opportunities to cooperate between the Biden administration and
the Macron government," said Martin Quencez, deputy director of the
Paris office of think-tank GMF.
"But for various reasons, cooperation and coordination haven't gone as far as one might imagine".
The tone between Paris and Washington
has calmed since a year ago, when the United States snatched a
lucrative contract to supply Australia with submarines from under French
noses -- and launched a new US-UK-Australia alliance in the Pacific,
dubbed AUKUS, that excluded France.
This week's visit could be
seen as the capstone of US efforts to placate a NATO ally which is one
of the strongest voices calling for European "strategic autonomy", said
Celia Belin, a researcher at the Brookings Institution.
"The French aren't always easy to manage, but when the French and the Americans agree, that moves things forward a great deal."
As
things stand, however, "we are not allies on the same page," one
adviser to Macron told AFP, promising "challenging" talks with Biden.
Despite
his support for Kyiv, Macron's insistence on continuing to talk with
Moscow throughout Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised American
hackles.
Another adviser told reporters last week that Macron
would speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin soon -- but not until
after his US visit.
The conversation comes just as some US
officials including Pentagon chief Mark Milley have raised the
possibility of a negotiated peace.
Putin's war has also set France and the United States at odds on the
economy, intensifying existing disagreements over issues like the green
transition and competing with China.
Massive US weapons deliveries
to Ukraine -- far outstripping the combined efforts of the European
Union -- have highlighted the country's pre-eminence as an arms
producer, while Franco-German joint efforts flounder.
That could
be highlighted still further if a divided US Congress refuses to
authorise the same level of aid to Kyiv from next year.
And as the
United States plans massive investments and subsidies under its
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Europeans fear distorting effects on
competition with their own firms in sectors like electric cars,
batteries and clean energy.
Macron will tell Biden "there's a
contradiction between an administration that constantly talks of
alliances... and at the same time takes a decision like the IRA that
will impact allies' economies and industry," researcher Quencez said.
A
senior Biden administration official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, stressed that even with the disagreements, the transatlantic
partnership remains strong.
On divergences over the more hawkish
US policy towards China, the official said European views are "not
identical, but I think there is a strong view that we should be speaking
from a common script in response to China."
As for US subsidies for domestic green technology companies, the
official said they do not shut out EU competitors and that a "very
constructive set of conversations" was underway on how to work together.
Nevertheless,
"We won't stand idly by" while the United States engages in alleged
protectionism, Macron's Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said.
A joint statement last week from finance ministers in Berlin and
Paris underscored the "urgent need for investments in Europe" to reduce
energy dependencies and tackle climate and digital transitions.
The communique was read by some observers as potentially heralding a wave of EU subsidies.
"China
favours its own products: America favours its own products. It might be
time for Europe to favour its own products," French Finance Minister
Bruno Le Maire told France 3 radio on Sunday.
In the immediate term, Europeans are angered by the swingeing prices
they must now pay for US exports of ship-borne liquefied natural gas --
replacing cheaper Russian pipeline gas cut off during the invasion of
Ukraine.
France in particular has suffered a double energy blow as much of its
fleet of nuclear power plants is offline for maintenance or due to
flaws uncovered in their cooling systems.
With Luc Remont, the
newly installed head of state-controlled energy firm EDF, on Macron's
plane to Washington, some support for the civil nuclear industry could
be on the cards.
Macron is also expected to announce a fund to
support French language teaching on a later leg of his visit that will
take him to New Orleans
