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Speaker
Jean-Noël Barrot
Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of France
Moderator
Frederick Kempe
President and CEO, Atlantic Council
Event transcript
Uncorrected transcript: Check against delivery
FREDERICK KEMPE: Good afternoon to those joining us in our headquarters, our relatively new global headquarters here in Washington today. Good evening to those watching online from Europe. Hello to everyone joining us from throughout the world. My name is Fred Kempe. I’m president and CEO of the Atlantic Council. And I’m delighted to welcome you to Atlantic Council Front Page. This is our premier platform for global leaders. And it’s an honor to host today the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Jean-Noël Barrot. Today’s discussion turns our attention to one of the most enduring and consequential bilateral relationships in US history.
In the nearly two-and-a-half centuries since France became the first country to formalize diplomatic relations with the newly born United States—and next year, Mr. Minister, is the anniversary of the revolution here—France became the first country to formalize diplomatic relations with the newly born United States. Since that time, this pillar of the transatlantic relationship has seen moments of triumph and moments of trial. From Lafayette and Washington to the beaches of Normandy, the United States and France have forged a partnership unlike any other, based on common values and history.
However, this relationship goes beyond just sentiment. At each major inflection point in recent history, our countries have stood together. Not just because of friendship, but because of shared interests. And now, facing a war on European soil, facing an unfolding trade war, potentially, rapidly evolving technological disruptions, and more, the United States and France must consider how to recalibrate and perhaps how to reinvent its partnership, and the broader Atlantic alliance with it, in order to achieve our common goals of security, prosperity, and freedom.
As we think through how best to address these challenges, we are delighted to welcome Minister Barrot for today’s event, and on the occasion of his first visit to the United States in his current role. The minister has held numerous positions in the French government, including most recently minister delegate for Europe, and then minister delegate for digital affairs, making him well-placed to share the French perspective on the political dynamics at the EU level, as well as critical issues of digital and tech policy. And it may help in these times also to be an economist. Minister Barrot, so, welcome to the Atlantic Council.
Before we begin, let me just say to our audience that we will be taking questions. First Minister Barrot will make some opening comments, then I will join him on the stage and ask a few questions, and then turn to the audience for questions. For those in person, we’ll have a microphone to pass around. For those online, please go to AskAC.org, AskAC.org, to send your question in virtually.
Minister Barrot, it’s always a pleasure to have someone speak at the end of meetings in Washington instead of the beginning of meetings of Washington. So we look very much forward to your reflections.
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Hello, everyone.
One week from now on May 8 we’ll mark an important anniversary, the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. This was the starting point of an extraordinary endeavor, a formidable building—the building of rule-based international order, the building of multilateralism.
Who was the architect of this formidable building? Well, the architect of this building were the United States of America. They did not do this out of charity. They did this as—out of enlightened self-interest. They collected substantial dividends from multilateralism throughout the eight decades that have just passed by. The dividends of multilateralism—think about security. Thanks to the nonproliferation treaty, we collectively have avoided a race to the nuclear bomb that would have caused so much instability and raised the cost of defense for all our countries. NATO has allowed the US, alongside its European partners, to ensure security in the North Atlantic, but also a tool for major investment opportunities for its defense industry.
Think about trade. WTO has allowed the US economy to grow, has allowed US services to thrive—digital services, financial services, around the world.
Think about currency. The Bretton Woods Institution, the Bretton Woods framework have made the dollar a global reserve currency. What does it mean to be a global reserve currency? It means that everyone wants to hold you so that the yields on your Treasury bonds are the lowest on earth. And even more than that, when there is a crisis—even when there is a crisis in the US, people rush to buy your Treasury bonds, and the cost of borrowing goes down.
This exorbitant privilege, as a French president coined it, is part of the dividends of multilateralism that the US brought to the world and that they also benefitted from.
This formidable building, the building of multilateralism, was designed eighty years ago for a unipolar war, where a benevolent hegemon, the United States of America, was the guarantor of rule-based international order. A world in which US leadership was unchallenged, untested.
But eighty years later, indeed, the world has changed. It has become multipolar. US leadership is challenged, and sometimes multilateralism seems powerless or unfit for purpose. And therefore, and gradually, a temptation arises for the US to perhaps let go of multilateralism, quit multilateralism, to pull back, to restrain. This is a sovereign choice that belongs to the American people. But this would be a major shift—a major shift for the US, who would not be able to collect the dividends of multilateralism any longer; a major shift for the world, because the multilateralism will survive whether or not the US quit multilateralism.
And so someone will fill the void, starting with China, who is already getting ready to step up and to become the new hegemon of this new era of multilateralism, in the case where the US would decide to let them play this role.
Now, there is another route. There is an alternative route. Rather than quitting multilateralism, reshaping it, adjusting it, making it fit for the twenty-first century. The first step—and this is a difficult step—is accepting to share the power in order not to lose it altogether. This means reforming the UN and its Security Council, reforming the financial infrastructure to make space for big emerging countries, and share the burden with them, but also hold them responsible because they have part of the burden to share in handling the global issues and challenges.
The second step when building multilateral for a multipolar world is to be ready to build coalitions of the willing to overcome obstruction in multilateral fora like the UN Security Council when they arise. It’s not because something won’t happen at the UN or the IMF or the World Bank that you cannot design a coalition of the willing with willing and able countries in order to overcome this obstruction.
This is the new era of multilateralism and this is the route that Europe is willing to take and that Europe is hoping to take alongside the United States of America. One week from now we’ll celebrate another anniversary, not on May 8th but on May 9th, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of Europe.
On May 9th of 1950 my distant predecessor Robert Schuman woke up in a country, France, that was five years past World War II but where tensions were arising with the neighbor and rival Germany.
Germany was recovering from the war faster than France was and so what was the tendency in Paris on that day in that year? Well, the tendency was protectionism, was raising tariffs, raising barriers, to prevent Germany from thriving and fully recovering.
And so Robert Schuman, as he was heading to the council of ministers, he had this crazy idea in mind to put in common steel and coal across France and Germany, swimming against the tide to favor cooperation over confrontation.
At the council of ministers he barely mentioned this initiative for his prime minister not to prevent him from announcing it, and at 6:00 p.m. in a 1:30 speech he made this unilateral offer to create the European steel and coal community and laid the foundation of a multilateral cooperative European Union.
So, you see, when times are hard and when the tendency is to restrain, pull back, raise barriers, those visionary men that brought us prosperity and that brought us peace in European continent they swam against the tide and offer innovative models for cooperation.
So let us find inspiration in the great work of these visionary people. Thank you very much.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Minister Barrot, that was a—I feel that was a very important statement, and I’m going to start with that. You see by the audience and standing room only that there’s a lot of interest in this conversation and what you had to say.
The seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of Europe, the eightieth anniversary of VE Day all next week—thank you for calling attention to that—and it seemed really to be a call to your American allies and to the current administration to stay the course on multilateralism and transatlantic engagement, et cetera.
So, A, do you intend it as that? And it’s no accident no one in this audience who’s following the news, everyone knows that there are doubts right now in the transatlantic stream. Not all of them do I share. But I just wonder if you could give us a little bit more of the context for your statement.
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, we deeply care about the rule-based international order, multilateralism. So I spent two days in New York at the Security Council as we were wrapping up our presidency. You know, the fifteen members of Security Council, they get a one-month presidency every fifteen months. And so you try and make the most of your month’s-long presidency. And to give you a sense of what our commitment is, I am—we are very committed to the three fundamental missions of United Nations—peace and security, human rights, sustainable developments.
That’s why we had three important security meetings, Ukraine, Middle East, but also nonproliferation, in a closed-door Security Council meeting that was on proliferation that was first convened in fifteen years—was last convened fifteen years ago. On human rights, we brought together—I was mentioning coalitions of the willing. International humanitarian law is under attack, let’s say. And we brought together countries from all around the world—east, south, west, and north—in a coalition of the willing to support politically and better implement in practice the rules of international humanitarian law.
And then third, on sustainable development, we took this opportunity to bring together the countries that are the most committed, like we are, to the preservation of oceans, forty days ahead of the third United Nations Conference on Oceans that will take place in Nice, south of France, and is—and that is aimed to be the equivalent for ocean as what the Paris accord has been for carbon emissions. So we’re very ambitious with this event. We need as many countries as possible to rally some of the key deliverables of this conference. And so I decided I would spend some time at the UN talking about that.
So we think this is the right way to go, adjusting multilateralism to make it more efficient in the multipolar world that we’re—that we’re living in. And I hear that the new leadership in the—in the US is considering what its course of action is going to be. And I think amongst friends that have—that are actually the oldest friends, we owe each other, you know, an honest discussion on what we see our common interests to be. And I think that was the sense of my introductory remarks.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you so much. And I think you’re seeing a signal of commitment today, I think, toward the United Nations, with the nomination of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, to be the UN ambassador. So also an interesting piece of news.
Speaking of news, you have had meetings here. We do have media. French, US, other here. And I wonder whether you could tell us your perspective on what you take away from your conversations with Secretary Rubio, with others. Anything specific that we can take away from that? And then in that context, as you’re looking at what your greatest challenges are, what were the priorities in your conversations with US leadership?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, I mentioned the ninth of May and seventy-fifth anniversary of this declaration by Robert Schuman. This year will be in Ukraine, because I think a very important—a significant chunk of our future, and I’m not talking about the future of Europeans only, depends on how this war of aggression is going to end. So we’ll be with my fellow European ministers of foreign affairs there to express our support to Ukraine and our willingness for this war to end in accordance with the UN Charter and international law. So that was clearly an important topic that I discussed with US leadership at the State Department, as well as Capitol Hill.
But we also discussed the Middle East, where France and the US have been leading the effort to put an end to the war that was basically destroying Lebanon eight months ago. We managed to broker a ceasefire five months ago, to monitor the ceasefire through a joint mechanism. We managed to create the conditions for the end of a political crisis, with the election of President Joseph Aoun, that then appointed a government that is now at work trying to implement the reforms that are long due in Lebanon.
And we want to do the same thing—same fruitful cooperation—in Syria, where this—after overturning the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad there is an opportunity to build a strong, sovereign country that will be a source of stability rather than instability for the region.
I cannot let aside Gaza and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, where, again, we converge on the necessity to bring back stability and peace to the region. We have praised the Abraham Accord logic. And we are working in the same direction, bringing Muslim and Arabic countries in the region and Israel towards a security architecture that would ensure the security of all peace and stability.
We also discussed Africa, where the US made a breakthrough in handling or in sort of moving towards a cessation of hostilities in the Great Lakes regions in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the second-worst humanitarian crisis is happening right now. This is good. And after they were received or they were hosted by the Department of State a few days ago, the ministers of DRC and Rwanda gathered in Qatar with France and with the United States.
So, as you can see, on some of the major, major issues, major crises, France and the US are working together, you know, to find the right solutions. Sometime we’ll disagree. Sometime we don’t start from the same point. But look at Lebanon. It’s because of our complementary, because of different history in the region, because of the different nature of our partnership/relationship/friendship with the stakeholders of that crisis that we were able to broker a ceasefire and a political solution.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you for that answer.
Let’s start with Ukraine. News yesterday about a critical minerals deal with Ukraine. Almost more interested in the political side of this than the economic side of this. Talking to Ukrainian officials over the last few months, they’ve been concerned that the US had gone more from being an actual partner of Ukraine in trying to counter Russian threat and the Russian attack and more of an arbitrator, more of a moderator. This critical mineral deal, if you read the language of it, suggests a little bit of a change of direction. And I just wonder—and that is an area where, you know, France and the US have not always been entirely singing from the same song sheet. What did you hear during your trip there? How do you assess this new agreement and its political meaning?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, I think it’s a very good agreement. I think it’s a very good agreement for Ukraine and also for the US.
But I also think that it tells us something very important about what’s happening right now. Let’s go back to the Oval Office when President Zelensky was there. What was the expectation by President Trump with respect to Ukraine? Well, actually, there were two expectations: ceasefire and sign a minerals deal. Since then, on March 9 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine accepted a comprehensive ceasefire. And yesterday night, they agreed to a minerals deal with the United States of America. They’ve done their part of the job. They’ve walked their part of the talk.
But in the meantime, we haven’t seen Vladimir Putin send any signal, any sign of its willingness to comply with the requests of President Trump. To the very contrary. So let’s face it: Right now the main obstacle to peace is Vladimir Putin.
So what I found very interesting my meetings here in Washington is the efforts—the commendable efforts by Senator Lindsey Graham, who put together a massive package of sanctions that he—that he collected bipartisan support for, with almost seventy senators now signing the bill, which is aimed at threatening Russia into accepting a ceasefire or else those sanctions will apply. And here again, we agreed that we would try to coordinate because we, Europeans, are in the process of putting together a seventeenth sanction package that we are going to try on substance and timing to coordinate with Senator Graham’s own package.
That was perhaps a bit of a long answer, but in summary, it’s good news that this deal was struck. It’s good news that the US—and I heard Secretary Bessent express what he had in mind, that the US are considering deep economic cooperation with Ukraine. It goes in the right direction. It’s the right course that they should—that should be taken, basically.
FREDERICK KEMPE: And Secretary Bessent also said this is meant to be a signal to Putin, and you see it as that, as well?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Yeah. Put together this deal, the package by Lindsey Graham—who last time I checked is not a political adversary of President Trump—as well as the pressure that Europe is building up on Russia, and you get a sense of—well, the fact that it’s now basically Putin’s fault if we don’t yet have a ceasefire in Ukraine.
FREDERICK KEMPE: So, you’ve—in recent discussions with US Envoy Steve Witkoff, what divergences existed between France and the United States, and how do you hope to close those divergences? I guess part of this has to do with European troops, American backstop, but it also gets to the conditions behind a peace deal.
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Now, listen. If Ukraine was to capitulate, this would have long-lasting, wide-ranging consequences for the entire world, because it would basically replace rule-based international order by the law of the strongest. It would create massive incentives for countries around the world that have borders issue with their neighbors to consider that they can invade or they can use military threat or force to obtain territorial concessions. This would be major. And this would be very costly for all of us, at least for responsible powers like the US and France that tend to get involved when there are issues around the world, where we would see issues exploding all around the world. It would be major instability.
In addition to that, should Ukraine capitulate after Ukraine has agreed to let go of its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees, this will send a signal that the only ultimate security guarantee is the possession of nuclear weapons. And there, you have a nuclear proliferation crisis which, again, raises global instability at levels that we haven’t seen for the past eighty years, and will increase the cost massively of security in the US, security in Europe. And I think this view is shared between the US and France.
But, of course, there is one difference between the perspective of the US and the European perspective on this crisis, which is that our own security is at stake because we are neighbors of Russia, or because we don’t want to be neighbors of this Russia that is now spending 40 percent of its budget on its military spending, 10 percent of its GDP, that just conscribed 160,000 additional soldiers, the largest conscription in fourteen years. I’ve heard many, many times Russia say that they don’t want NATO at their borders. Well, we don’t want this Russia at our borders either.
And that’s why we are so serious about what’s happening, about how the war will end. And that’s why we’ve been insisting so much about the security guarantees. And I think our message went through. And I think the US are counting on us to build the security arrangements such that when the peace deal is struck that we can provide those security arrangements in order for the peace to be lasting and durable. But I think it’s well understood. And I’ve heard President Trump, but also officials from the US, clearly say that, of course, they want this peace to be lasting. And of course, this means that there is security guarantee for Ukraine.
FREDERICK KEMPE: And can it work without an American backstop? Are you getting closer to a conversation about that? Or, alternatively, is this critical minerals deal a security guarantee, in a different form?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: So you should put things into perspective. We are—we have been supporters of the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. Namely, we’ve said that we were open to extend an invitation, a NATO invitation, to Ukraine. We understand that NATO members—not all NATO members agree with our view. And so we have to find an alternative path. This alternative path is the sense of this coalition of the able, of the willing, that France and the UK has been putting together in order to design those security arrangements. This is ongoing work. This starts with making the Ukrainian army strong enough to be able to deter any further aggression by Russia, but it also very likely means some form of military capacity as a second layer of such a guarantee.
When those detailed discussions will have been wrapped up, they’re currently ongoing, it will appear whether or not, and how much, any contribution or backstop by the US is needed. It’s possible that it is needed. Why? Well, because as far as Europeans are concerned, we’ve been working—we’ve been—we’ve been working and planning for our defense. It’s a little bit—little bit different for France, the UK, and Poland. But for the rest of European armies, we’ve been working within NATO frameworks. So if—you know, if you’re going to work on a security arrangement outside of a NATO framework, then at some point you might need some kind of NATO-like enablers, or, you know, make items that are going to make sure that the security arrangement is robust.
But that being said, in the same way we fully understand that the US have decided that they will—they will likely reduce their commitment within NATO. We also understand that they are counting on us to bear the burden of providing the security arrangements. But we also need to be honest with them, once we’ve done our homework, if there are pieces of these security arrangements that cannot be replaced—you know, that can be—cannot be found outside of, you know, US contribution. We’ll just be honest.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Excellent answer. Thank you so much.
The one thing you didn’t mention in your opening comments is you didn’t talk about—you didn’t talk about tariffs. You knew I was going to say tariffs. And I wonder if it came up at all in your discussions. And also, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what—you know, this ninety-day pause gives a potential for an agreement. What sort of agreement can you imagine, or what is the direction of agreement with the European Union and the United States? How concerned are you about the tariffs driving a more lasting wedge across the Atlantic?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, the good thing, when you’re a foreign minister—the foreign affairs minister for France, is that you’re not responsible for tariffs. It’s the European Commission. That being said, you’re allowed to have your own view on things. And indeed, as an economist, I have to say, otherwise I would be a traitor to my profession, that tariffs are not good news. Are not a good idea. President Trump wants to bring jobs back to America. And this is a perfectly legitimate ambition. In fact, we have the same in Europe. We want to bring jobs back to Europe. But tariffs are probably not the best way to achieve this objective.
Tariffs are in tax on our economies. It’s a tax on the middle class. And it will make us, Europeans as well as Americans, poorer. We do have research on what happened during the last trade war, the 2018 trade war. What happened? Well, the effect on the economy on this side of the Atlantic was limited. It’s basically a seven billion loss—a seven-billion-dollar loss on the economy. That’s not big, but it led to a massive transfer from the US consumer middle class of fifty billion [dollars]. So a loss for the US consumer of fifty billion [dollars]; transferred to producers nine billion [dollars], to the government 35 billion [dollars], and the rest is what’s lost from US economy. So it’s a mild loss but it’s a massive transfer from the US consumers to the US government. That’s what happened last time around, and those numbers are small because the trade war at the time was very limited.
Multiply this, right, by ten and you’ll get the kind of effects that you’re going to see on European economies, US economies, and so on. So our hope is to reach the same type of outcome that we got the last time around. The US applied tariffs, we retaliated, and then at some point we suspended those. We lifted those tariffs.
It was not the same administration that did it but still those tariffs were lifted, and I really hope that we’ll get to this objective because, again, we’re very closely intertwined economies so we have a lot to lose while we have major rivals, adversaries, competitors, that are going to benefit massively from this trade war if we sort of choose confrontation over cooperation.
FREDERICK KEMPE: So let me ask one quick follow-up there and then I’ll go to the audience. On the tariffs, you know, did you raise this issue when you were here—you are the foreign minister but it is a political as well as an economic issue—and did you get any indications of what direction the agreement could go?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, the good thing about being Marco Rubio is that you’re not in charge of tariffs either. But when we met in NATO I told him that if there was only one positive aspect of those tariffs is that by lowering GDPs that would allow us to reach our NATO targets faster.
FREDERICK KEMPE: That’s on the record, everybody.
Let me take a first question from Bill Drozdiak.
Q: William Drozdiak, author and journalist.
We seem to be entering a phase—a new intensive phase of big-power rivalry with the United States retreating from security commitments in Europe, Russian military militarizing its society and having designs on other neighbors besides Ukraine, and China seeking economic domination of the world. President Macron has spoken often about the need for Europe to achieve greater strategic autonomy. Do you think Europe should seek to constitute a fourth bloc even at the risk of putting greater space between its principal—with its principal ally, the United States?
And a quick follow-up. You spoke about the need to share power in a multilateral context. In terms of UN Security Council reform is France prepared to fold its seat into the European Union presence or would you also agree to the idea of expanding the Security Council to have ten to twelve nations?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Well, thank you. So you mentioned Russia. You mentioned the four blocs. That was your first question.
I wouldn’t call Russia a bloc. Russia has a GDP that is twenty times smaller than the EU. I wouldn’t call that a bloc. Russia is a big country geographically. It is, you know, one of the winning nations of the Second World War so it has a—you know, there are a number of consequences coming with that including the permanent seat at the Security Council. But I wouldn’t call Russia a bloc.
And we don’t see the—we don’t see ourselves—when we speak about strategic autonomy we don’t see ourselves as entering into a logic of blocs or spheres of influence and stuff like that. We remain committed to multilateralism, rule-based international world order, balance.
The only thing is that in a more brutal world—brutal world—if you want to be heard and be respected when you’re upholding the values that Europe and the EU are upholding—freedom, democracy, free speech, and so on—you’re going to need to be much stronger, much less dependent on other regions.
And so we see our strategic autonomy as a way to defend a model which is an open model, which is a balanced model, which is a multilateral model of governance for the world. And we see a lot of sort of appetite for this approach, because since those trade wars started we cannot count the number of countries that are knocking at EU’s door to strike a trade deal or even to become a candidate. And it’s not only Iceland and Norway that seem to be interested; I heard that on this side of the Atlantic there are people considering it. And you know that there is one geographical criteria, but I just want to mention that even though it’s a very, very, very, very tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—no one lives there; I think it’s, like, twenty meters long—but this island is split between Canada and Denmark, which gives Canada an actual border with the European Union.
And the second question is about reform. So I want quickly because I was told that remarks should not be long in introduction of those conversations, but I really think that if we want to adjust those institutions—Security Council and so on—to the new era, we need to accept that others have grown over the past eighty years and they need to—they need to be represented, but they also need to take their responsibility. Some of them are no longer developing countries; they are actual major economies, major powers. So they should have a seat at the table, but they should also behave as major powers.
So what’s our position? Our position is a permanent seat at the Security Council for India, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African countries, with all associated prerogatives. This is what we want for the reform of the Security Council.
But we also want the same kind of thing to happen with the international financial institutions. And this is the spirit of what President Macron has called the Paris pact for all, the pact for the people and the planet, where the idea is the following: No country in the south should have to choose between fighting against poverty and fighting against climate change. So it should be more balanced, more equal, sort of equitable funding for southern countries. But those emerging countries for the south—from the south that are now developed economies should also bear their responsibilities with respect to the least-developed countries, with the poorest countries on the planet. Because right now some of them are sort of bunching with the least-advanced countries to not sort of take their responsibility with respect to the poorest countries. So that’s the spirit in which we’re pushing. And in fact, I had a meeting dedicated to Security Council reform on Monday in New York with some of the African countries that are working on it.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you for that clear answer.
Well, we’re got a lot of questions now. I saw this gentleman first, and then we’ll go—I’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. Where have I got—I want to turn to the French press here at some point. If there’s anyone here that wants to—there we go. That’s what I’m going to do next. There we go. Please.
Q: Thank you, Foreign Minister.
In context with President Macron’s call to Prime Minister Modi of India in solidarity after the terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, India, do you see a justifiable response by India against this attack as another roadblock to ensuring the India-Middle East corridor gets off the ground? Of course, it was set back after the Israel-Hamas war. And did that conversation come up in your discussion with Secretary Rubio today? And if not, then what do we need to do, collectively as the international community, to make sure this gets off the ground?
FREDERICK KEMPE: Could you identify yourself too?
Q: Oh yes. Jay Kansara. Jay Kansara, independent analyst.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Great.
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Thank you. So President Macron has been in touch with Prime Minister Modi. I’ve been in touch on the phone two times with Dr. Jaishankar, my fellow foreign affairs minister from India. We expressed solidarity. We’ve expressed that we stand alongside India to fight against terrorism. Of course, we hope for restraint on both sides, for the tensions not to escalate. And I heard Secretary Rubio called Pakistan to formally recognize the terrorist nature of this attack, and to condemn it in the strongest possible way. And I would happily join his call to Pakistan to recognize the terrorist nature of this—of what happened. And we’ll keep in touch with Marco Rubio, but also with my fellow minister David Lammy from Great Britain, the UK, and my Indian colleague in order to ensure or to try and avoid an escalation in the region.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Please?
Q: Good afternoon, Minister. Piotr Smolar from the French newspaper Le Monde.
I have two questions, the first one regarding security guarantees for Ukraine. For months France supported the idea of a deployment of a sort of international monitoring force in Ukraine but with very strong American security guarantees. The Trump administration doesn’t seem to see eye-to-eye on this. They don’t—they are not inclined to offer any sort of serious security guarantees. So what’s the plan B? Have you given up on this two-fold idea or not?
And the second question, regarding Iran. There are currently very important discussions between the Trump administration, direct and indirect with the Iranian representatives. For a very long time France was in favor of putting on the table as well with Iran the ballistic issue. That doesn’t seem the case at all right now. The Trump administration is basically considering a sort of JCPOA—revisit it, or maybe an interim agreement. So what’s your view exactly on the current discussions?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Thank you. So on the first question, let me just clarify, because I think it’s important that everyone gets this right. There are two things. First there is a ceasefire, and the ceasefire needs to be monitored. And the coalition of the able and willing, put together by France and the UK, have been working on proposals so that the minute a ceasefire is brokered that the US have in their hands—because they will be sort of the guardians of the ceasefire—solutions for this ceasefire to be monitored. And this might involve some European capacity just to, you know, to check what’s happening and the line of contact and to be able to attribute violations. So that’s one thing.
But the ceasefire is only one step towards what’s our end goal, which is a full-fledged peace treaty or peace agreement. This peace agreement that the Ukrainians and Russians will be discussing—but that was President Trump’s intuition—this discussion cannot happen while the war is happening in Ukraine. That’s why you need a ceasefire for the discussion to start.
It will end up with discussions on territories and discussions on security guarantees. And with the same coalition of the able and willing, we’re working on this second piece, which is security guarantees. But security guarantee has nothing to do with monitoring the ceasefire. Security guarantee is deterrence against any further aggression. How do you do that? Well, as I was saying earlier, the first layer is to porcupine the Ukrainian army, for it to be deterrent enough for anyone to try and invade. But then you probably have in other layers—so, military capacity, deployed in Ukraine or around Ukraine, and that’s what we’re working on. And when the moment is ripe, we will get to the Americans and ask them or tell them what is it we need for this security guarantee to be. And we’re working on this, and we’re confident. And again, as I was saying, I’ve heard President Trump on several occasions speak in a way that shows that he understands the importance of this security guarantee.
And then on Iran—very important topic that I should have mentioned in response to your first question, Mr. President, because this is a topic on which we’ve been coordinating with Marco Rubio on day one—from day one.
We are supporting, encouraging the discussion that the US opened with Iran. Why? Because Iran is posing a major threat to our security interests because we, France—Marseilles—are within reach, and because our partners—close partners in the region are also within reach. So we are very serious about this question. But we believe that there is no other route, no other path than a diplomatic path to solve this issue. That there is no military solution to this issue, and that any form of military attempt to solve this issue would have very large costs that we would not like to bear.
So in order for this discussion to be as successful as possible, we’ve been coordinating with the US on substance and timing. Substance, because our teams have been working over the past few months ahead of the expiration of the JCPOA, of the nuclear agreement that was struck ten years ago and is that is expiring in the fall. So we were getting ready for this expiration. And we have a clear idea of, indeed, what might be a robust and protective deal for us. And this would include, indeed, some of the ballistic components, but also the regional activities, components. And the substance is what is sort of at the disposal of US negotiators, because it’s for free and there is no copyright. And I was very transparent with that.
But we also coordinated on timing, because we will not hesitate to reapply all the sanctions that we lifted ten years ago when JCPOA was struck in the case where the IAEA confirms that Iran has violated its obligations under JCPOA, and if it happens that by the summer we don’t have a protective—or, a deal that is sufficiently protective of our security interests.
FREDERICK KEMPE: So we—this has got to be the last question. I really apologize to others, but I saw that gentleman’s hand up first right here in the middle. So—no, no. There we go. Yes, please. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
Q: Mr. Minister, thank you for being here. I’m Alex Saint-Jemi from Transfer Paris and Georgetown University.
You mentioned very clearly the fact that the PRC will fill the void caused by US disengagement during your opening speech. I’d like to know what’s your opinion, what’s your take on what will—how France will balance its relationship with the US and at the same time with China, in light of the fact that France needs new partners, and also in light of the fact that President Trump openly asked European leaders to break ties with the PRC. Thank you.
FREDERICK KEMPE: And since this is the last question, let me add to it. Let me add to it on the tariff front, because, you know, in your conversations here—and you’ve spoken before about the relationship between the European Union and China on the trade front—does this tariff policy drive Europe more into the hands of trade and economic relationships with China? And if you believe that, have you said that to your interlocutors here in Washington during your visit?
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: I mean, it’s obvious, no? We were—I mean, you know, whether you want it or not, look at what happened. I mean, read economic research. The numbers I quoted earlier are from a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics called the Return to Protectionism. It’s the best paper on the 2018 trade war, best economic paper, research paper. But any paper will tell you that what happened last time is that it was—you know, during the 2018 trade war it’s not like suddenly factories moved from one country to another. It was a reshuffling of international trade. So you’re going to see a lot of reshuffling.
You mentioned the—or, you recalled what I said up there on China and filling the void. Listen to Chinese official speeches now. And, again, we take all of this with lots of grains of salt, but my colleague, Wang Yi, minister of foreign affairs, now in all his speeches is saying how much he cares about multilateralism. And I’m sure—no, but he seriously is saying this constantly. And he will—I mean, I’m pretty sure that they will consider filling the void at the World Health Organization. I’m pretty sure that they will—anytime they will see some pullback, they will try to step in. Because they have two—there are two possible strategies. Either the US are there filling the void, and then they will try to build sort of formats outside of the established formats, as we’ve seen them do; or they will see US pullback and then they will try and fill the void.
Now, what’s our relationship with China, as far as Europe is concerned? Again, we’re lucid. We are—we’re not blind. And so we think there can be a trade agenda with China, so long as some of the issues that we’ve had are solved, which is not quite the case now. Because we’ve also had our trade war with China those past few years, with us sanctioning Chinese EVs and them sanctioning European brandies, which mean cognac and armagnac. So this is dear to our heart, and we—of course, it’s going to be difficult to engage into an actual trade agenda with them until those sort of contentious issues are solved. Then we can.
But of course, our discussion cannot only touch upon trade. And when China is supporting Russia’s war of aggression, when China is on the side of DPRK, on the side of Iran, proliferating countries that are threatening this Non-Proliferation Treaty and sort of the global stability, it’s difficult to build trust. And so if China wants to establish sort of a trusted relationship with European countries, it will have to show also that it takes our security interests into account. Otherwise, it will—it might—it might be challenging.
FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you for—you have your answer? . . . Yes. Great. Thank you.
So, look, this—Minister Barrot, on behalf of the audience, on behalf of the Atlantic Council, thank you for three things: First of all, for your visit to the United States, a very timely visit, very crucial moment; second of all, for taking so much time with us at the Atlantic Council and talking so frankly and clearly in your opening statement, and in this fascinating engagement; and then, most of all, for our enduring alliance. So thank you so much.
JEAN-NOËL BARROT: Thank you.
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