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- French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said “America is back” now that President Joe Biden is in office.
- “It’s great to have a US president who’s part of the club and very willing to cooperate,” Macron said at the G7 Summit.
- Macron’s remarks mark a stark contrast from when President Donald Trump was in office.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday signaled his confidence in the United States as an ally with President Joe Biden at the nation’s head.
When asked by reporters whether he thinks “America is back,” Biden gestured to Macron to answer the question.
“Yes, definitely,” Macron said at the G7 Summit.
“It’s great to have a US president who’s part of the club and very willing to cooperate,” Macron said. “What you demonstrate is that leadership is partnership.”
-Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) June 12, 2021
Biden, adding on, indicated his agreement.
“The United States, I’ve said before, we’re back,” the US president said. “Things are going, I think, well, and we’re, as we say back in the States, we’re on the same page.”
Macron’s comments about relations between the United States and other countries like France are a complete departure from his thoughts from when President Donald Trump was in office.
Trump and Macron had a notoriously tumultuous relationship. The French president, for example, didn’t seem to regard Trump as a leader, characterizing him as someone who’s not a “classical politician.”
After the US pulled out of the Paris climate agreement in 2017, France chose to not invite American leaders to a climate change meeting in Paris. Macron around the same time said France “will be there to replace” US contributions to the funding of climate change research.
In 2019, Macron and other world leaders, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, were caught on a hot mic mocking Trump for his unusually long press conferences.
Macron in his Saturday remarks did not explicitly mention Trump by name but reporters and officials were quick to make comparisons between the former president and Biden.
Macron’s remarks come on the heels of praise and criticism from other world leaders.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, for example, hailed Biden on Thursday as “a big breath of fresh air.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin told NBC News that Trump is “extraordinary” and “talented.” Putin called Biden a “career man” who “has spent virtually his entire adulthood” in politics.
Across 12 countries surveyed on Biden’s approval rating so far, a median of 75% of respondents said they felt confident he would “do the right thing regarding world affairs,” according to a Pew Research study released Thursday. At the end of Trump’s presidency, just 17% of global respondents believed the same about the former president.
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