Joe Biden admits US was 'clumsy' in orchestrating AUKUS in meet with Macron

US President Joe Biden admitted in a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday that America was "clumsy" in orchestrating a secret AUKUS pact. Before their first face-to-face meeting since the AUKUS pact between the US, the UK, and Australia was publicly disclosed in September, Joe Biden and Macron exchanged handshakes and shoulder grips, signalling the latest American effort to mend ties with Paris. Though the US President did not publicly apologise to Macron, he did admit that the US should not have surprised one of its longest allies.

“I think, what happened was to use an English phrase, what we did was clumsy, the submarine deal was not done with a lot of grace. I was under the impression that France had been informed long before," Biden said, AP reported.

A previous French deal to supply Australia with its own submarines was replaced by the US-led submarine contract. The United States maintained that arming Australia with higher-quality nuclear-powered boats will help the Pacific ally better limit Chinese advance in the region. AP reported, citing a top French official, that Macron was expecting Biden to make a new "promise" to aid French anti-terrorist operations in Africa's Sahel region. In the Sahel, France has been seeking increased information and military cooperation from the US. Macron stated that the two allies would build “stronger cooperation” to avoid repeated misunderstandings.

“What really matters now is what we will do together in the coming weeks, the coming months, the coming years," he said, according to AP.

France accuses Biden of copying Trump

France, meanwhile, which lost out on more than $60 billion as a result of the deal, claimed that the Biden administration misled them about the talks with Australia at the highest levels, and accused President Biden of copying the techniques of his predecessor, Donald Trump. 

France is particularly enraged that it has been kept in the dark about significant geopolitical shifts and that its interests in the Indo-Pacific, where it has 2 million people and 7,000 troops, have been overlooked, AP reported. However, Biden and Macron were scheduled to meet to discuss new ways to work in the Indo-Pacific, a move aimed at assuaging French resentment over the submarine deal's exclusion from the US-UK-Australia collaboration.

Other topics on the table include China, Afghanistan, and Iran, particularly in light of Tehran's agreement to return to nuclear talks next month. As a result of the row, Biden's carefully polished image of working to consolidate and enhance the trans-Atlantic alliance after Trump's administration was questioned, as France withdrew its ambassador to the US for the first time in over 250 years of diplomatic relations in protest.

The White House has conceded that the Biden-Macron meeting in Rome will be organised and sponsored by France, which Macron's office has described as "politically essential." In the meantime, Jill Biden, the first lady, was set to host Brigitte Macron for a "bilateral engagement" on Friday afternoon. Biden has not publicly apologised to French President Emmanuel Macron, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, but he agreed that there could have been better conversation before the deal was announced.

(With inputs from AP, Image: AP)