French President Emmanuel Macron has held a bilateral meeting with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, ahead of the United Nations' annual meeting in New York.
Macron said that the meeting, scheduled to discuss the US position on the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, went well.
“We had a very good conversation,” Macron said. “It was very constructive; there was a great deal of openness, and we were able to discuss those two conflicts in depth.”
According to Macron, the two presidents discussed how to protect oil facilities around the Red Sea, with the French news agency Agence France-Presse reporting that France offered to help protect energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia.
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Since the start of the American-Iranian war in February, energy facilities in the region have been attacked repeatedly.
On Ukraine, Macron stressed to Trump that American aid remains essential in the conflict, with Ukraine running critically low on air defence missiles to defend itself from Russian attacks.
While Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, sent large amounts of military support to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022, including American-made Patriot systems and missiles, Trump has not sent new weaponry since taking office.
He introduced a weapons-for-cash program for European nations to buy American weapons for Ukraine.
