Remarks by Trump and President Macron of France Before Bilateral Meeting; London, United Kingdom

[mahatmakanejeeves]

REMARKS

Remarks by President Trump and President Macron of France Before Bilateral Meeting | London, United Kingdom
FOREIGN POLICY

Issued on: December 3, 2019

Winfield House
London, United Kingdom

2:25 P.M. GMT

{snip}

Q Mr. President, has France committed to step up when it comes to taking back foreign fighters in Syria?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I haven’t asked that to the President today. I have over the period of time. We have a tremendous amount of captured fighters — ISIS fighters — over in Syria, and they’re all under lock and key. But many are from France, many are from Germany, many are from UK. They’re mostly from Europe. And some of the countries are agreeing.

I have not spoken to the President about that. Would you like some nice ISIS fighters? I can give them to you. You can take — you can take everyone you can.

PRESIDENT MACRON: Let’s be serious: The very large number of fighters you have on the ground are ISIS fighters coming from Syria, from Iraq, and the region. It is true that you have foreign fighters coming from Europe, but this is a tiny minority of the overall problem we have in the region.

And I think number-one priority — because it’s not yet finished — is to get rid of ISIS and these terrorist groups. This is our number-one priority. And it’s not yet done. I’m sorry to say that. Yes, you still have fighters in this region — in Syria, and now in Iraq — and more and more. And the whole destabilization of the region makes the situation more difficult to fix the situation against ISIS.

Second, some of these foreign fighters are being (inaudible) in Iraq because of the deeds, precisely, they act in this very region. And we will have a case-by-case approach. We have a humanitarian approach for children already organized, and we will have a case-by-case approach.

But, for me, the very first objective in the region is to finish war against ISIS. And don’t make any mistake: Your number-one problem are not the foreign fighters. This is the ISIS fighters in the region. And you have more and more of these fighters due to the situation today.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: This is why he’s a great politician, because that was one of the greatest non-answers I’ve ever heard — (laughter) — and that’s okay.

PRESIDENT MACRON: Because sometimes you can have some temptation from the U.S. side — I don’t say about President Trump, but could be the press — to say, “This is European responsibility.” I’m sorry to say that.

We have some of our people, but if you don’t look at the reality of the situation that is number one — not to be ambiguous with these groups — this is why we started to discuss about our relations with Turkey. But I think any ambiguity with Turkey vis-à-vis these groups is detrimental to everybody for the situation on the ground.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: France has actually taken back some fighters. But we have a lot of fighters. We’ve captured a lot of people. And we have captured 100 percent of the caliphate, but you know that that means that it’s still — they keep going and going.

We sent a small contingent in, and we wiped out another portion of ISIS. We don’t want to happen, to me, what happened with President Obama, where it re-formed and then it became stronger than it was in the first place. So we don’t want that to happen.

And, as I said before: We’ve taken the oil. We have the oil. So we have total control of the oil so that they’re not going to be able to use that.

They use that oil to really — to fuel up their wealth, to fuel up their money. That was their primary source of income. And they get contributions. So we have, now, lists of where these contributions come from, which is very important. You have people contributing, if you can believe it. Some of these people are wealthy people that make contributions. And we have lists of —

Well, we learned a lot. You know, when we got al-Baghdadi, that was a great get. And when we killed him, we have a lot of information that I’m revealing now for the first time, but we also got a lot of good information.

So a lot of things are happening. And France has been very helpful, I have to say that. They’ve been very, very helpful.

Okay? Go ahead. Any other questions, please?

{snip}

[AJT]

1. Notice the press didn't follow up with the fact that ISIS has reformed

and was never 100% captured.

The press SUCKS.