President Joe Biden knows how to make amends.
A year ago, the prospect that French President Emmanuel Macron would be Biden's first state dinner guest would have been laughable. France, after all, had taken the extraordinary step of recalling its ambassador after the US went behind its back and struck a deal to build submarines for Australia that cost its European ally billions of dollars. Paris saw the deal, which trashed its own agreement with Australia, as a stab in the back.
It's a sign of Biden's acknowledgment that the affair was clumsily handled -- and the growing importance of France in US foreign policy -- that he will honor Macron with all the ceremony that the White House can offer. Even after the worst of the Covid-19 emergency, the president hasn't exactly been rolling out the red carpet. It's his first state dinner, nearly two years into his term.
The French leader, now in his own second term, is an increasingly influential world leader. After the retirement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain's exit from the European Union, Macron is now the bloc's pivotal voice. He shares Biden's concern for global (and American) democracy. Given its colonial history, France sees itself as a power in the Pacific and while it does not necessarily share Washington's hawkish stance toward China, it is increasingly skeptical about letting Beijing buy up tracts of European infrastructure.
Macron has at times been at odds with the United States over Ukraine, and has kept up contacts with Vladimir Putin even after his invasion, warning that the West should make sure it does not humiliate the Russian president. If there's ever an international peace effort, Macron will be a key player and his open channel to Putin will therefore be useful for the United States. "If you look at what's going on in Ukraine, look at what's going on in the Indo-Pacific and the tensions with China, France is really at the center of all those things," said John Kirby, the National Security Council's coordinator for strategic communications. "And President Macron has been a dynamic leader inside the G7, particularly there in Europe."
But it's not all rosy in America's oldest diplomatic relationship. France and its European partners are frustrated over one of Biden's biggest domestic political achievements, a multi-billion dollar climate package stuffed with tax breaks for green energy products -- on the condition that they're made in North America. Similar deals are blocked under EU law, meaning a competitive disadvantage for the bloc.
Biden, who put his presidency on the line to get the climate deal through minuscule majorities in Congress, is unlikely to change it. But at least he can invite his French counterpart to dinner.
