President Biden on Friday met his French counterpart for the first time since relations soured over the AUKUS defense deal between the U.S., Australia, and the United Kingdom.
The trilateral agreement provides Australia with nuclear-powered submarines to counter Chinese aggression in the region, but France called the move a “stab in the back” because a 2016 submarine contract a French company had with Australia was passed over in favor of the new deal.
France was so enraged it recalled its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia and canceled a gala that celebrated US-French relations.
Asked if the relationship between the U.S. and France has been repaired, Biden gave what critics are calling an "embarrassing" response.
“What we did was clumsy, not done with a lot of grace,” Biden said. “I was under the impression that certain things had happened that hadn't happened."
"I want to make it clear France is an extremely valued partner,” he added, noting that he was “under the impression that France was informed long before" the deal went through.
Embarrassing. https://t.co/1mRBRp7wQj
— Ian Miles Cheong @ stillgray.substack.com (@stillgray) October 29, 2021
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, said it’s "important to ensure such a situation isn’t possible in the future."
U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry admitted earlier this month that Biden was totally clueless the deal would upset France so much.
"He literally had not been aware of what had transpired," Kerry told a French news channel. "And I don't want to go into the details of it, but suffice it to say, that the president, my president, is very committed to strengthening the relationship and making sure that this is a small event of the past and moving on to the much more important future."