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• The Atlantic Council hosted French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs(...)

The Atlantic Council hosted French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Nol Barrot on Europe and the new world order.

Published on May 2, 2025

Washington, DC - May 1, 2025

Moderator
Frederick Kempe
President and CEO, Atlantic Council

FREDERICK KEMPE: Good afternoon to those joining us in our headquarters, our relatively new global headquarters here in Washington today. Good evening to those watching online from Europe. Hello to everyone joining us from throughout the world. My name is Fred Kempe. Im president and CEO of the Atlantic Council. And Im delighted to welcome you to Atlantic Council Front Page. This is our premier platform for global leaders. And its an honor to host today the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of the French Republic Jean-Nol Barrot. Todays discussion turns our attention to one of the most enduring and consequential bilateral relationships in US history.

In the nearly two-and-a-half centuries since France became the first country to formalize diplomatic relations with the newly born United Statesand next year, Mr.Minister, is the anniversary of the revolution hereFrance became the first country to formalize diplomatic relations with the newly born United States. Since that time, this pillar of the transatlantic relationship has seen moments of triumph and moments of trial. From Lafayette and Washington to the beaches of Normandy, the United States and France have forged a partnership unlike any other, based on common values and history.

However, this relationship goes beyond just sentiment. At each major inflection point in recent history, our countries have stood together. Not just because of friendship, but because of shared interests. And now, facing a war on European soil, facing an unfolding trade war, potentially, rapidly evolving technological disruptions, and more, the United States and France must consider how to recalibrate and perhaps how to reinvent its partnership, and the broader Atlantic alliance with it, in order to achieve our common goals of security, prosperity, and freedom.

As we think through how best to address these challenges, we are delighted to welcome Minister Barrot for todays event, and on the occasion of his first visit to the United States in his current role. The minister has held numerous positions in the French government, including most recently minister delegate for Europe, and then minister delegate for digital affairs, making him well-placed to share the French perspective on the political dynamics at the EU level, as well as critical issues of digital and tech policy. And it may help in these times also to be an economist. Minister Barrot, so, welcome to the Atlantic Council.

Before we begin, let me just say to our audience that we will be taking questions. First Minister Barrot will make some opening comments, then I will join him on the stage and ask a few questions, and then turn to the audience for questions. For those in person, well have a microphone to pass around. For those online, please go to AskAC.org, AskAC.org, to send your question in virtually.

Minister Barrot, its always a pleasure to have someone speak at the end of meetings in Washington instead of the beginning of meetings of Washington. So we look very much forward to your reflections.

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Thank you very much, Mr.President. Hello, everyone.

One week from now on May 8 well mark an important anniversary, the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. This was the starting point of an extraordinary endeavor, a formidable buildingthe building of rule-based international order, the building of multilateralism.

Who was the architect of this formidable building? Well, the architect of this building were the United States of America. They did not do this out of charity. They did this asout of enlightened self-interest. They collected substantial dividends from multilateralism throughout the eight decades that have just passed by. The dividends of multilateralismthink about security. Thanks to the nonproliferation treaty, we collectively have avoided a race to the nuclear bomb that would have caused so much instability and raised the cost of defense for all our countries. NATO has allowed the US, alongside its European partners, to ensure security in the North Atlantic, but also a tool for major investment opportunities for its defense industry.

Think about trade. WTO has allowed the US economy to grow, has allowed US services to thrivedigital services, financial services, around the world.

Think about currency. The Bretton Woods Institution, the Bretton Woods framework have made the dollar a global reserve currency. What does it mean to be a global reserve currency? It means that everyone wants to hold you so that the yields on your Treasury bonds are the lowest on earth. And even more than that, when there is a crisiseven when there is a crisis in the US, people rush to buy your Treasury bonds, and the cost of borrowing goes down.

This exorbitant privilege, as a French president coined it, is part of the dividends of multilateralism that the US brought to the world and that they also benefitted from.

This formidable building, the building of multilateralism, was designed eighty years ago for a unipolar war, where a benevolent hegemon, the United States of America, was the guarantor of rule-based international order. A world in which US leadership was unchallenged, untested.

But eighty years later, indeed, the world has changed. It has become multipolar. US leadership is challenged, and sometimes multilateralism seems powerless or unfit for purpose. And therefore, and gradually, a temptation arises for the US to perhaps let go of multilateralism, quit multilateralism, to pull back, to restrain. This is a sovereign choice that belongs to the American people. But this would be a major shifta major shift for the US, who would not be able to collect the dividends of multilateralism any longer; a major shift for the world, because the multilateralism will survive whether or not the US quit multilateralism.

And so someone will fill the void, starting with China, who is already getting ready to step up and to become the new hegemon of this new era of multilateralism, in the case where the US would decide to let them play this role.

Now, there is another route. There is an alternative route. Rather than quitting multilateralism, reshaping it, adjusting it, making it fit for the twenty-first century. The first stepand this is a difficult stepis accepting to share the power in order not to lose it altogether. This means reforming the UN and its Security Council, reforming the financial infrastructure to make space for big emerging countries, and share the burden with them, but also hold them responsible because they have part of the burden to share in handling the global issues and challenges.

The second step when building multilateral for a multipolar world is to be ready to build coalitions of the willing to overcome obstruction in multilateral fora like the UN Security Council when they arise. Its not because something wont happen at the UN or the IMF or the World Bank that you cannot design a coalition of the willing with willing and able countries in order to overcome this obstruction.

This is the new era of multilateralism and this is the route that Europe is willing to take and that Europe is hoping to take alongside the United States of America. One week from now well celebrate another anniversary, not on May 8th but on May 9th, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of Europe.

On May 9th of 1950 my distant predecessor Robert Schuman woke up in a country, France, that was five years past World War II but where tensions were arising with the neighbor and rival Germany.

Germany was recovering from the war faster than France was and so what was the tendency in Paris on that day in that year? Well, the tendency was protectionism, was raising tariffs, raising barriers, to prevent Germany from thriving and fully recovering.

And so Robert Schuman, as he was heading to the council of ministers, he had this crazy idea in mind to put in common steel and coal across France and Germany, swimming against the tide to favor cooperation over confrontation.

At the council of ministers he barely mentioned this initiative for his prime minister not to prevent him from announcing it, and at 6:00 p.m. in a 1:30 speech he made this unilateral offer to create the European steel and coal community and laid the foundation of a multilateral cooperative European Union.

So, you see, when times are hard and when the tendency is to restrain, pull back, raise barriers, those visionary men that brought us prosperity and that brought us peace in European continent they swam against the tide and offer innovative models for cooperation.

So let us find inspiration in the great work of these visionary people. Thank you very much.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Minister Barrot, that was aI feel that was a very important statement, and Im going to start with that. You see by the audience and standing room only that theres a lot of interest in this conversation and what you had to say.

The seventy-fifth anniversary of the birth of Europe, the eightieth anniversary of VE Day all next weekthank you for calling attention to thatand it seemed really to be a call to your American allies and to the current administration to stay the course on multilateralism and transatlantic engagement, et cetera.

So, A, do you intend it as that? And its no accident no one in this audience whos following the news, everyone knows that there are doubts right now in the transatlantic stream. Not all of them do I share. But I just wonder if you could give us a little bit more of the context for your statement.

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, we deeply care about the rule-based international order, multilateralism. So I spent two days in New York at the Security Council as we were wrapping up our presidency. You know, the fifteen members of Security Council, they get a one-month presidency every fifteen months. And so you try and make the most of your months-long presidency. And to give you a sense of what our commitment is, I amwe are very committed to the three fundamental missions of United Nationspeace and security, human rights, sustainable developments.

Thats why we had three important security meetings, Ukraine, Middle East, but also nonproliferation, in a closed-door Security Council meeting that was on proliferation that was first convened in fifteen yearswas last convened fifteen years ago. On human rights, we brought togetherI was mentioning coalitions of the willing. International humanitarian law is under attack, lets say. And we brought together countries from all around the worldeast, south, west, and northin a coalition of the willing to support politically and better implement in practice the rules of international humanitarian law.

And then third, on sustainable development, we took this opportunity to bring together the countries that are the most committed, like we are, to the preservation of oceans, forty days ahead of the third United Nations Conference on Oceans that will take place in Nice, south of France, and isand that is aimed to be the equivalent for ocean as what the Paris accord has been for carbon emissions. So were very ambitious with this event. We need as many countries as possible to rally some of the key deliverables of this conference. And so I decided I would spend some time at the UN talking about that.

So we think this is the right way to go, adjusting multilateralism to make it more efficient in the multipolar world that werethat were living in. And I hear that the new leadership in thein the US is considering what its course of action is going to be. And I think amongst friends that havethat are actually the oldest friends, we owe each other, you know, an honest discussion on what we see our common interests to be. And I think that was the sense of my introductory remarks.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you so much. And I think youre seeing a signal of commitment today, I think, toward the United Nations, with the nomination of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, to be the UN ambassador. So also an interesting piece of news.

Speaking of news, you have had meetings here. We do have media. French, US, other here. And I wonder whether you could tell us your perspective on what you take away from your conversations with Secretary Rubio, with others. Anything specific that we can take away from that? And then in that context, as youre looking at what your greatest challenges are, what were the priorities in your conversations with US leadership?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, I mentioned the ninth of May and seventy-fifth anniversary of this declaration by Robert Schuman. This year will be in Ukraine, because I think a very importanta significant chunk of our future, and Im not talking about the future of Europeans only, depends on how this war of aggression is going to end. So well be with my fellow European ministers of foreign affairs there to express our support to Ukraine and our willingness for this war to end in accordance with the UN Charter and international law. So that was clearly an important topic that I discussed with US leadership at the State Department, as well as Capitol Hill.

But we also discussed the Middle East, where France and the US have been leading the effort to put an end to the war that was basically destroying Lebanon eight months ago. We managed to broker a ceasefire five months ago, to monitor the ceasefire through a joint mechanism. We managed to create the conditions for the end of a political crisis, with the election of President Joseph Aoun, that then appointed a government that is now at work trying to implement the reforms that are long due in Lebanon.

And we want to do the same thingsame fruitful cooperationin Syria, where thisafter overturning the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad there is an opportunity to build a strong, sovereign country that will be a source of stability rather than instability for the region.

I cannot let aside Gaza and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, where, again, we converge on the necessity to bring back stability and peace to the region. We have praised the Abraham Accord logic. And we are working in the same direction, bringing Muslim and Arabic countries in the region and Israel towards a security architecture that would ensure the security of all peace and stability.

We also discussed Africa, where the US made a breakthrough in handling or in sort of moving towards a cessation of hostilities in the Great Lakes regions in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the second-worst humanitarian crisis is happening right now. This is good. And after they were received or they were hosted by the Department of State a few days ago, the ministers of DRC and Rwanda gathered in Qatar with France and with the United States.

So, as you can see, on some of the major, major issues, major crises, France and the US are working together, you know, to find the right solutions. Sometime well disagree. Sometime we dont start from the same point. But look at Lebanon. Its because of our complementary, because of different history in the region, because of the different nature of our partnership/relationship/friendship with the stakeholders of that crisis that we were able to broker a ceasefire and a political solution.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Thank you for that answer.

Lets start with Ukraine. News yesterday about a critical minerals deal with Ukraine. Almost more interested in the political side of this than the economic side of this. Talking to Ukrainian officials over the last few months, theyve been concerned that the US had gone more from being an actual partner of Ukraine in trying to counter Russian threat and the Russian attack and more of an arbitrator, more of a moderator. This critical mineral deal, if you read the language of it, suggests a little bit of a change of direction. And I just wonderand that is an area where, you know, France and the US have not always been entirely singing from the same song sheet. What did you hear during your trip there? How do you assess this new agreement and its political meaning?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, I think its a very good agreement. I think its a very good agreement for Ukraine and also for the US.

But I also think that it tells us something very important about whats happening right now. Lets go back to the Oval Office when President Zelensky was there. What was the expectation by President Trump with respect to Ukraine? Well, actually, there were two expectations: ceasefire and sign a minerals deal. Since then, on March 9 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine accepted a comprehensive ceasefire. And yesterday night, they agreed to a minerals deal with the United States of America. Theyve done their part of the job. Theyve walked their part of the talk.

But in the meantime, we havent seen Vladimir Putin send any signal, any sign of its willingness to comply with the requests of President Trump. To the very contrary. So lets face it: Right now the main obstacle to peace is Vladimir Putin.

So what I found very interesting my meetings here in Washington is the effortsthe commendable efforts by Senator Lindsey Graham, who put together a massive package of sanctions that hethat he collected bipartisan support for, with almost seventy senators now signing the bill, which is aimed at threatening Russia into accepting a ceasefire or else those sanctions will apply. And here again, we agreed that we would try to coordinate because we, Europeans, are in the process of putting together a seventeenth sanction package that we are going to try on substance and timing to coordinate with Senator Grahams own package.

That was perhaps a bit of a long answer, but in summary, its good news that this deal was struck. Its good news that the USand I heard Secretary Bessent express what he had in mind, that the US are considering deep economic cooperation with Ukraine. It goes in the right direction. Its the right course that they shouldthat should be taken, basically.

FREDERICK KEMPE: And Secretary Bessent also said this is meant to be a signal to Putin, and you see it as that, as well?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Yeah. Put together this deal, the package by Lindsey Grahamwho last time I checked is not a political adversary of President Trumpas well as the pressure that Europe is building up on Russia, and you get a sense ofwell, the fact that its now basically Putins fault if we dont yet have a ceasefire in Ukraine.

FREDERICK KEMPE: So, youvein recent discussions with US Envoy Steve Witkoff, what divergences existed between France and the United States, and how do you hope to close those divergences? I guess part of this has to do with European troops, American backstop, but it also gets to the conditions behind a peace deal.

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Now, listen. If Ukraine was to capitulate, this would have long-lasting, wide-ranging consequences for the entire world, because it would basically replace rule-based international order by the law of the strongest. It would create massive incentives for countries around the world that have borders issue with their neighbors to consider that they can invade or they can use military threat or force to obtain territorial concessions. This would be major. And this would be very costly for all of us, at least for responsible powers like the US and France that tend to get involved when there are issues around the world, where we would see issues exploding all around the world. It would be major instability.

In addition to that, should Ukraine capitulate after Ukraine has agreed to let go of its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees, this will send a signal that the only ultimate security guarantee is the possession of nuclear weapons. And there, you have a nuclear proliferation crisis which, again, raises global instability at levels that we havent seen for the past eighty years, and will increase the cost massively of security in the US, security in Europe. And I think this view is shared between the US and France.

But, of course, there is one difference between the perspective of the US and the European perspective on this crisis, which is that our own security is at stake because we are neighbors of Russia, or because we dont want to be neighbors of this Russia that is now spending 40 percent of its budget on its military spending, 10 percent of its GDP, that just conscribed 160,000 additional soldiers, the largest conscription in fourteen years. Ive heard many, many times Russia say that they dont want NATO at their borders. Well, we dont want this Russia at our borders either.

And thats why we are so serious about whats happening, about how the war will end. And thats why weve been insisting so much about the security guarantees. And I think our message went through. And I think the US are counting on us to build the security arrangements such that when the peace deal is struck that we can provide those security arrangements in order for the peace to be lasting and durable. But I think its well understood. And Ive heard President Trump, but also officials from the US, clearly say that, of course, they want this peace to be lasting. And of course, this means that there is security guarantee for Ukraine.

FREDERICK KEMPE: And can it work without an American backstop? Are you getting closer to a conversation about that? Or, alternatively, is this critical minerals deal a security guarantee, in a different form?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: So you should put things into perspective. We arewe have been supporters of the Euro-Atlantic integration of Ukraine. Namely, weve said that we were open to extend an invitation, a NATO invitation, to Ukraine. We understand that NATO membersnot all NATO members agree with our view. And so we have to find an alternative path. This alternative path is the sense of this coalition of the able, of the willing, that France and the UK has been putting together in order to design those security arrangements. This is ongoing work. This starts with making the Ukrainian army strong enough to be able to deter any further aggression by Russia, but it also very likely means some form of military capacity as a second layer of such a guarantee.

When those detailed discussions will have been wrapped up, theyre currently ongoing, it will appear whether or not, and how much, any contribution or backstop by the US is needed. Its possible that it is needed. Why? Well, because as far as Europeans are concerned, weve been workingweve beenweve been working and planning for our defense. Its a little bitlittle bit different for France, the UK, and Poland. But for the rest of European armies, weve been working within NATO frameworks. So ifyou know, if youre going to work on a security arrangement outside of a NATO framework, then at some point you might need some kind of NATO-like enablers, or, you know, make items that are going to make sure that the security arrangement is robust.

But that being said, in the same way we fully understand that the US have decided that they willthey will likely reduce their commitment within NATO. We also understand that they are counting on us to bear the burden of providing the security arrangements. But we also need to be honest with them, once weve done our homework, if there are pieces of these security arrangements that cannot be replacedyou know, that can becannot be found outside of, you know, US contribution. Well just be honest.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Excellent answer. Thank you so much.

The one thing you didnt mention in your opening comments is you didnt talk aboutyou didnt talk about tariffs. You knew I was going to say tariffs. And I wonder if it came up at all in your discussions. And also, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about whatyou know, this ninety-day pause gives a potential for an agreement. What sort of agreement can you imagine, or what is the direction of agreement with the European Union and the United States? How concerned are you about the tariffs driving a more lasting wedge across the Atlantic?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, the good thing, when youre a foreign ministerthe foreign affairs minister for France, is that youre not responsible for tariffs. Its the European Commission. That being said, youre allowed to have your own view on things. And indeed, as an economist, I have to say, otherwise I would be a traitor to my profession, that tariffs are not good news. Are not a good idea. President Trump wants to bring jobs back to America. And this is a perfectly legitimate ambition. In fact, we have the same in Europe. We want to bring jobs back to Europe. But tariffs are probably not the best way to achieve this objective.

Tariffs are in tax on our economies. Its a tax on the middle class. And it will make us, Europeans as well as Americans, poorer. We do have research on what happened during the last trade war, the 2018 trade war. What happened? Well, the effect on the economy on this side of the Atlantic was limited. Its basically a seven billion lossa seven-billion-dollar loss on the economy. Thats not big, but it led to a massive transfer from the US consumer middle class of fifty billion [dollars]. So a loss for the US consumer of fifty billion [dollars]; transferred to producers nine billion [dollars], to the government 35 billion [dollars], and the rest is whats lost from US economy. So its a mild loss but its a massive transfer from the US consumers to the US government. Thats what happened last time around, and those numbers are small because the trade war at the time was very limited.

Multiply this, right, by ten and youll get the kind of effects that youre going to see on European economies, US economies, and so on. So our hope is to reach the same type of outcome that we got the last time around. The US applied tariffs, we retaliated, and then at some point we suspended those. We lifted those tariffs.

It was not the same administration that did it but still those tariffs were lifted, and I really hope that well get to this objective because, again, were very closely intertwined economies so we have a lot to lose while we have major rivals, adversaries, competitors, that are going to benefit massively from this trade war if we sort of choose confrontation over cooperation.

FREDERICK KEMPE: So let me ask one quick follow-up there and then Ill go to the audience. On the tariffs, you know, did you raise this issue when you were hereyou are the foreign minister but it is a political as well as an economic issueand did you get any indications of what direction the agreement could go?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, the good thing about being Marco Rubio is that youre not in charge of tariffs either. But when we met in NATO I told him that if there was only one positive aspect of those tariffs is that by lowering GDPs that would allow us to reach our NATO targets faster.

FREDERICK KEMPE: Thats on the record, everybody.

Let me take a first question from Bill Drozdiak.

William Drozdiak, author and journalist.

We seem to be entering a phasea new intensive phase of big-power rivalry with the United States retreating from security commitments in Europe, Russian military militarizing its society and having designs on other neighbors besides Ukraine, and China seeking economic domination of the world. President Macron has spoken often about the need for Europe to achieve greater strategic autonomy. Do you think Europe should seek to constitute a fourth bloc even at the risk of putting greater space between its principalwith its principal ally, the United States?

And a quick follow-up. You spoke about the need to share power in a multilateral context. In terms of UN Security Council reform is France prepared to fold its seat into the European Union presence or would you also agree to the idea of expanding the Security Council to have ten to twelve nations?

JEAN-NOL BARROT: Well, thank you. So you mentioned Russia. You mentioned the four blocs. That was your first question.

I wouldnt call Russia a bloc. Russia has a GDP that is twenty times smaller than the EU. I wouldnt call that a bloc. Russia is a big country geographically. It is, you know, one of the winning nations of the Second World War so it has ayou know, there are a number of consequences coming with that including the permanent seat at the Security Council. But I wouldnt call Russia a bloc.

And we dont see thewe dont see ourselveswhen we speak about strategic autonomy we dont see ourselves as entering into a logic of blocs or spheres of influence and stuff like that. We remain committed to multilateralism, rule-based international world order, balance.

The only thing is that in a more brutal worldbrutal worldif you want to be heard and be respected when youre upholding the values that Europe and the EU are upholdingfreedom, democracy, free speech, and so onyoure going to need to be much stronger, much less dependent on other regions.

And so we see our strategic autonomy as a way to defend a model which is an open model, which is a balanced model, which is a multilateral model of governance for the world. And we see a lot of sort of appetite for this approach, because since those trade wars started we cannot count the number of countries that are knocking at EUs door to strike a trade deal or even to become a candidate. And its not only Iceland and Norway that seem to be interested; I heard that on this side of the Atlantic there are people considering it. And you know that there is one geographical criteria, but I just want to mention that even though its a very, very, very, very tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Oceanno one lives there; I think its, like, twenty meters longbut this island is split between Canada and Denmark, which gives Canada an actual border with the European Union.

And the second question is about reform. So I want quickly because I was told that remarks should not be long in introduction of those conversations, but I really think that if we want to adjust those institutionsSecurity Council and so onto the new era, we need to accept that others have grown over the past eighty years and they need tothey need to be represented, but they also need to take their responsibility. Some of them are no longer developing countries; they are actual major economies, major powers. So they should have a seat at the table, but they should also behave as major powers.

So whats our position? Our position is a permanent seat at the Security Council for India, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and two African countries, with all associated prerogatives. This is what we want for the reform of the Security Council.

But we also want the same kind of thing to happen with the international financial institutions. And this is the spirit of what President Macron ha

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