President Donald Trump brushed off Emmanuel Macron after the French president schooled him on agreements made between European nations and Ukraine.
Macron was in Washington, D.C. Monday for a call with other G7 leaders to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, among other subjects.
A reporter asked, "Will France support the U.S. being compensated" by Ukraine for the money spent to help them fight the war against Russia.
"I support the idea to have Ukraine first being compensated because they are the ones who have lost a lot of their fellow citizens, and they're being destroyed by these attacks. Second, all of those who paid for it could be compensated, but not by Ukraine, by Russia, because they were the one to aggress."
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Trump interrupted, "Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back."
Macron quickly corrected him.
"No, in fact, to be frank, we paid 60% of the total effort. And it was through, like the U.S., loans, guaranteed grants, and we provided real money. To be clear, we have 230 billion frozen assets in Europe — Russian assets. But this is not as a collateral of a loan because this is not our belonging. They are frozen. If, at the end of the day in the negotiation we will have with Russia, they are ready to give it to us, super. It will be a loan at the end of the day and Russia will have paid for that."
"If you believe that, it's okay with me, but they get their money back. We don't, and now we do. But you know, that's only fair," Trump said.
On Sunday, Ukraine's President Zelensky denied Trump’s demand for a $500 billion share of the country's deposits of rare minerals as part of payback deal.