PARIS: France will send its ambassador back to Washington next week after French President Emmanuel Macron and President Joe Biden agreed in a phone call Wednesday to meet next month over a submarine dispute.
The two heads of state “have decided to open a process of in-depth consultations, aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence,” the Elysee and the White House said in a joint statement. Macron and Biden will meet at the end of October in Europe, the statement said.
In an unprecedented move, France recalled its ambassador after the US, Australia and Britain announced a new Indo-Pacific defense deal last week. As part of the pact, Australia will cancel a multibillion-dollar contract to buy diesel-electric French submarines and acquire US nuclear-powered vessels instead.
The French ambassador will “have intensive work with senior US officials” after his return to the United States, the statement said.
Biden and Macron agreed “that the situation would have benefitted from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners,” it said. Biden “conveyed his ongoing commitment in that regard.”
Biden reaffirmed in the statement “the strategic importance of French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The European Union unveiled last week a new strategy for boosting economic, political and defense ties in the vast area stretching from India and China through Japan to Southeast Asia and eastward past New Zealand to the Pacific.
The United States also “recognizes the importance of a stronger and more capable European defense, that contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and is complementary to NATO,” the statement said.
Earlier Wednesday, Macron’s office said the French president was expecting “clarifications and clear commitments” from Biden, who had requested the call.
French officials described as a “crisis of trust” last week’s announcement of the Indo-Pacific deal, with Macron being formally informed only a few hours beforehand.
Paris is calling for “acts, not words only,” Macron’s office said.
France’s European Union partners agreed Tuesday to put the dispute at the top of the bloc’s political agenda, including at an EU summit next month.
The French presidency categorically denied a report by Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper published on Wednesday saying Macron could offer the country’s permanent seat on the UN Security Council to the European Union if the bloc backs his plans on EU defense.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed French anger over the submarine deal, saying French officials should “get a grip.” Using both French and English words, he added they should give him a “break.”
Speaking to reporters on a visit to Washington, Johnson said the deal was “fundamentally a great step forward for global security. It’s three very like-minded allies standing shoulder-to-shoulder, creating a new partnership for the sharing of technology.”
“It’s not exclusive. It’s not trying to shoulder anybody out. It’s not adversarial toward China, for instance.”
The deal has widely been seen as part of American efforts to counter a more assertive China in the Indo-Pacific region.
France's envoy to return to US after Macron, Biden talks
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France's envoy to return to US after Macron, Biden talks
- The two heads of state “have decided to open a process of in-depth consultations, aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence,” the Elysee and the White House said in a joint statement.
- The French ambassador will “have intensive work with senior U.S. officials” after his return to the United States
Trump says US could run Venezuela and its oil for years
- US president made the comments less than a week after Washington seized Maduro in a raid on Caracus
- Oil has emerged as the key to US control over Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves
WASHINGTON: The United States could run Venezuela and tap into its oil reserves for years, President Donald Trump said in an interview published Thursday, less than a week after toppling its leader Nicolas Maduro.
“Only time will tell” how long Washington would demand direct oversight of the South American country, Trump told The New York Times.
But when asked whether that meant three months, six months or a year, he replied: “I would say much longer.”
The 79-year-old US leader also said he wanted to travel to Venezuela eventually. “I think at some point it’ll be safe,” he said.
US special forces snatched president Maduro and his wife in a lightning raid on Saturday and whisked them to New York to face trial on drug and weapons charges, underscoring what Trump has called the “Donroe Doctrine” of US hegemony over its backyard.
Since then Trump has repeatedly asserted that the United States will “run” Venezuela, despite the fact that it has no boots on the ground.
Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodriguez insisted that no foreign power was governing her country. “There is a stain on our relations such as had never occurred in our history,” Rodriguez said of the US attack.
But she added it was “not unusual or irregular” to trade with the United States now, following an announcement by state oil firm PDVSA that it was in negotiations to sell crude to the United States.
‘Tangled mess’
Oil has in fact emerged as the key to US control over Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven reserves.
Trump announced a plan earlier this week for the United States to sell between 30 million and 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude, with Caracas then using the money to buy US-made products.
On the streets of Caracas, opinions remain mixed about the oil plan.
“I feel we’ll have more opportunities if the oil is in the hands of the United States than in the hands of the government,” said Jose Antonio Blanco, 26. “The decisions they’ll make are better.”
Teresa Gonzalez, 52, said she didn’t know if the oil sales plan was good or bad.
“It’s a tangled mess. What we do is try to survive, if we don’t work, we don’t eat,” she added.
Trump, who will meet oil executives on Friday, is also considering a plan for the US to exert some control over Venezuela’s PDVSA, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The US would then have a hand in controlling most of the oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, as Trump aims to drive oil prices down to $50 a barrel, the paper reported.
Vice President JD Vance underscored that “the way that we control Venezuela is we control the purse strings.”
“We tell the regime, ‘you’re allowed to sell the oil so long as you serve America’s national interest,’” he told Fox News host Jesse Watters in an interview broadcast late Wednesday.
‘Go like Maduro’
Vance, an Iraq veteran who is himself a skeptic of US military adventures, also addressed concerns from Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” saying the plan would exert pressure “without wasting a single American life.”
The US Senate is voting Thursday on a “war powers” resolution to require congressional authorization for military force against Venezuela, a test of Republican support for Trump’s actions.
Caracas announced on Wednesday that at least 100 people had been killed in the US attack and a similar number wounded. Havana says 32 Cuban soldiers were among them.
Trump’s administration has so far indicated it intends to stick with Rodriguez and sideline opposition figures, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado.
But Rodriguez’s leadership faces internal pressures, analysts have told AFP, notably from her powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
“Her power comes from Washington, not from the internal structure. If Trump decides she’s no longer useful, she’ll go like Maduro,” Venezuela’s former information minister Andres Izarra told AFP in an email.
The US operation in Venezuela — and Trump’s hints that other countries could be next — spread shockwaves through the Americas, but but he has since dialed down tensions with Colombia.
A day after Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro spoke with Trump on Wednedsday, Bogota said Thursday it had agreed to take “joint action” against cocaine-smuggling guerrillas on the border with Venezuela.
