U.S. President Donald J Trump congratulated Emmanuel Macron after a big win against candidate Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election on Sunday.
However, Trump had previously expressed support for the right wing candidate, Le Pen.
In an interview, Trump said that he thinks Le Pen is "strongest on borders, and she's the strongest on what's been going on in France."
Nevertheless, the President was quick to tweet his congratulations on Sunday, "Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France. I look very much forward to working with him!"
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Trump and Le Pen see eye-to-eye on issues ranging from immigration, suspicion of trade and globalism and an advocacy of what they both bill as nation-first politics.
Trump and Le Pen had previously also expressed cordial ties as Le Pen indicated before the US election that her presidential choice would have been Trump, if given the chance. In January, just a week before Trump's inauguration as president, she visited Trump Tower in Manhattan but did not meet him, reports the Guardian. More recently though, ties between the two have paled as Pen criticized Trump's move to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base in retaliation to a chemical weapons attack by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad last month.
Macron swept the votes by a huge margin, securing his position with 65% votes. The win also secures France's position in EU keeping in co-ordinance with the President's campaign policies.
Le Pen's defeat pricks the bubble of populism that had swept the UK with Brexit and the US with the rise of Trump, and as such may have adverse knock-on effects for the new incumbent of the White House, according to the Guardian.