President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France diverged on the Ukraine war on Monday as the visiting European leader contradicted the American president over who was responsible for the Russian invasion and how much the allies are doing to help Ukraine.
While trading compliments and friendly gestures during a convivial White House meeting, Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron’s polite exchange exposed the deepening divide between the United States and Europe as the newly restored American president seeks to broker a peace deal with Russia.
Meeting on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Trump refused to call President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a dictator and falsely stated that the United States had spent three times more on the war than Europe has. Mr. Macron treaded gently, but he made clear that Russia was to blame for the war, not Ukraine, and corrected Mr. Trump’s assertions about European aid.
Mr. Trump also said he might go to Moscow if a peace deal is reached, which he predicted could happen within weeks. That would make him the first American president to visit Russia in more than a decade and would be seen as a boon for Mr. Putin, who faces an international arrest warrant for war crimes.
The session came at a time of growing tension over the future of the Atlantic alliance and peace talks with Russia that have sidelined Ukrainian and European leaders. Mr. Macron has rallied European leaders to formulate a strategy as the United States appears to be shifting favor from Europe to Russia, then he rushed to Washington to meet personally with Mr. Trump.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump, who last week said that Ukraine “started” the war and that Mr. Zelensky is a “dictator without elections,” declined to use the term for Mr. Putin. “I don’t use those words lightly,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Macron, by contrast, gave voice to the consensus view in Europe and, until now, in the United States that Moscow is to blame for the war. “This is a responsibility of Russia because the aggressor is Russia,” the French president said.
At one point, Mr. Trump repeated the false claim that the United States had spent $350 billion to aid Ukraine and “we had nothing to show for it,” while Europe has spent only $100 billion. In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe has allocated $138 billion compared with $119 billion from the United States.
Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the nature of European aid. “Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine,” he said. “They get their money back.”
Mr. Macron, who earlier in the meeting had been speaking in French through an interpreter, quickly interjected in English and put his hand on Mr. Trump’s arm to correct him.
“No, in fact, to be frank, we paid,” Mr. Macron said. Like the United States, he said, there has been a mix of grants, loans and loan guarantees. “We provided real money, to be clear,” he said.
Mr. Trump, smiling, made a skeptical face and waved his hand as if to say that he did not buy it.
Mr. Trump, who failed to broker an end to the war in 24 hours or before his inauguration, as he promised on the campaign trail, said that talks he has initiated with Mr. Putin could end the war “within weeks, if we’re smart.” He added: “If we’re not smart, it will keep going and we will lose young, beautiful people.”
The president emphasized his demand that Ukraine sign over hundreds of billions of dollars in mineral rights to repay U.S. military aid, which Mr. Zelensky has resisted. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, said U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators were “very close” to a deal, at the “one-yard line.”
Mr. Trump’s return to power has convulsed relations with European allies as he threatens to impose tariffs on their consumer goods, demands that they increase military spending even beyond a previous target and breaks with them over Ukraine. Relations were inflamed by a speech in Munich by Vice President JD Vance suggesting that the biggest security threat to European nations is not Russia or China, but their own political and cultural policies.
Mr. Macron has organized two meetings of European leaders to formulate a plan for dealing with an America that can no longer be depended on as an ally and hoped to use his visit to fortify Mr. Trump in negotiations over the fate of Ukraine.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron have a long and complicated history. As the president greeted Mr. Macron at the entrance to the West Wing on Monday, the two engaged in a vigorous handshake in which both seemed in a lighthearted but pointed way trying to assert masculine dominance, reminiscent of similar encounters during Mr. Trump’s first term. During their later session in the Oval, they flashed smiles, flattered each other and jocularly shook hands again.
