U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron will huddle Friday in Rome while Paris is still seething over a secret U.S.-British submarine deal with Australia, which left France in the lurch and rattled Europe's faith in American loyalty.
ROME -- One of President Joe Biden's toughest meetings at the G-20 summit may be with the leader of America's oldest ally: France.
Macron is expecting Biden to make a new "commitment" to supporting French anti-terrorist operations in the Sahel region of Africa, according to a top French official. France has been seeking greater intelligence and military cooperation from the U.S. in the Sahel. But the French, who lost out on more than US$60 billion from the deal, have argued that the Biden administration at the highest levels misled them about the talks with Australia and even levied criticism that Biden was adopting the tactics of his bombastic predecessor, Donald Trump. France is especially angry over being kept in the dark about a major geopolitical shift, and having its interests in the Indo-Pacific -- where France has territories with 2 million people and 7,000 troops -- ignored.
In a concession by the White House, the Biden-Macron meeting in Rome is being organized and hosted by France, which Macron's office called "politically important." Meanwhile, first lady Jill Biden was to host Brigitte Macron for a "bilateral engagement' Friday afternoon. "We feel very good about the intensive engagement that we've had with France over the course of the past few weeks," he added. He said he expected Biden and Macron to issue a joint statement outlining areas of mutual cooperation, including the Indo-Pacific and economic and technological cooperation.
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