Macron calls on Trump to focus on priority issues, fix situation in Ukraine instead trade war with EU
President of France Emmanuel Macron, commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump's statements about extra tariffs for the European Union, has called on the American administration to focus on the top priority issues.
"I think it's not a top priority in the current environment, given all the challenges we have. We have to fix [the situation in] Ukraine. We have the situation in the Middle East. We have this competition between the United States and China. And we have all this innovation from AI to clean tech. Honestly, I don't think it should be the top priority," he said in an interview with CNN.
Macron also said the European Union should be ready to stand for its interests.
"I think the European Union should not be the one to wait for the initiative of the others and just react. What we have to do is to act for ourselves and to tell our people, this is our project, this is what we want. This is why for me the top priority for Europe is competitiveness agenda, is defense and security agenda, is AI ambition, and let's go fast for ourselves. If in the meanwhile we have tariff issue, we will discuss them and we will fix it," he said.