About 15 months ago, it looked like the relationship between the United States and France was spiraling down the drain. At that time, the Biden administration had signed the AUKUS security pact with Australia and the United Kingdom, the core tenant of which was the transfer of U.S. nuclear submarine technology to Australia. This deeply upset the French, seeing as AUKUS meant an end to their own $66 billion conventional-powered submarine contract with Canberra. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister at the time, condemned the deal as a “stab in the back.”

There was none of that acrimony during Thursday’s press conference at the White House, where President Joe Biden stood alongside Macron before their state dinner to lavish praise on one another. The two leaders presented a united front on the most critical issues, and while Macron was quick to point out his displeasure with subsidies for U.S.-based green industry, Biden committed to working with the French to iron out any issues.