President Trump on Monday insisted that he was not blindsided by the arrival of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zafir at the G-7 summit in France and said he decided not to meet with him because the timing wasn’t “appropriate.”

“President Macron told me every step he was making. He told me long before he came in what was happening,” Trump said during a news conference with the French leader in Biarritz.

“I didn’t think it was appropriate to meet yesterday, too soon, and things have to be worked out first,” Trump said of Zafir’s appearance Sunday at the summit where the minister met with Macron and officials from Germany and the United Kingdom.

Trump said Macron kept him fully informed about the Iranian official’s visit.

“President Macron told me exactly what was happening, who was coming, what time they were coming, where they were going to meet. And after the meeting he told me exactly what happened. And I think he had a positive meeting,” the president said.

“We’re going to see how it all turns out. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t,” he continued.

Macron said he got Iran’s OK on Friday for Zarif’s visit and he discussed it with other world leaders at their dinner Saturday evening.

The French leader said it was his decision.

“I informed President Trump that it was my idea not to involve the United States, not to say this is on behalf of you, of everybody, but to say as friends I think it would be a good idea to ask him to go back and try to negotiate something,” Macron said. “So I did it on my own.”

Trump said he would take Macron up on his offer to try to set up a meeting within weeks between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Trump.

“If the circumstances were correct or right, I would certainly agree to that. In the meantime they have to be good players,” Trump said, adding that otherwise Iran would be met with “violent force.”

Macron’s gambit to invite Zafir to the G-7 gathering at the seaside resort created an air of confusion and chaos on Sunday and launched speculation that Team Trump was caught flat-footed.

But Trump acknowledged earlier Monday that he was not surprised or upset by Macron’s move.

“He asked my approval. President Macron asked my – we have a very good relationship. Look – you know, that’s another thing you got wrong,” Trump said, but wouldn’t comment on whether any US officials met with Zafir.

Macron invited Zafir in an effort to break the impasse between Tehran and Washington after Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic and reimposed crushing economic sanctions against the country.

Several of the G-7 members, including France, Germany and Britain, are still part of the deal and have tried to salvage it.

Rouhani defended Zafir from criticism from hard-liners who hold to the position that negotiations cannot begin until sanctions are lifted.

“If I knew that going to a meeting and visiting a person would help my country’s development and resolve the problems of the people, I would not miss it,” he said in a televised speech. “Even if the odds of success are not 90 percent but are 20 or 10 percent, we must move ahead with it. We should not miss opportunities.”

With Post wires