“I hold both countries responsible” for the decline in relations, Trump said Monday.

It didn’t stop there.

“I think that the United States has been foolish,” Trump said. “I think we’ve all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago, a long time frankly before I got to office. And I think we’re all to blame.”

Disagreements among rival nations are hardly new; neither is dialogue among them at times of tension. Trump’s desire for closer relations with Moscow, though, appears to be an end unto itself. The president has not publicly articulated what the U.S. stands to gain from improved relations with Russia. Past administrations have talked to Russia, while publicly emphasizing areas of cooperation as well as differences. Trump, who hasn’t shied away from criticizing U.S. allies publicly over differences on trade, security, and other issues, has refrained from doing the same with Russia.

Compare Trump’s remarks on Monday with similar news conferences Putin held with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, both Western peers of Trump. Those countries have deeply entrenched economic relations with Russia—and are reliant on Moscow for their energy needs. Their news conferences were held in May in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, an agreement to which Russia, France, and Germany are also party (along with China, the U.K., and the EU). The French and German leaders sharply criticized Moscow when policies diverged—as they do on several fronts.

“I am well aware of Russia’s indispensable role in solving some international issues, but I believe that Russia, for its part, should also respect our interests, the interests of our sovereignty as well as the interests of our partners,” Macron said on May 24. Standing beside Putin, he cited “deep differences” between the two countries on the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons (Syria and Russia deny that such weapons were used, in the face of evidence to the contrary) but added: “I believe that we should coordinate our efforts to create a mechanism for determining responsibility in the event of fresh cases of chemical weapons being used by this or that side.”

Macron also defended his meeting with representatives in Russia of NGOs and human-rights organizations, saying he’d spoken with Putin “absolutely transparently about” Russian NGOs and human rights. “I told the president that these two issues are very sensitive for this country because our intellectual elite is very concerned over them,” Macron said.

Macron also spoke about Russia’s alleged cyberattacks across Europe.“This is a real problem today,” he said. “It is fueling some of the issues on human rights that exist in our society because cyberattacks have their economic and security aspects.” It wasn’t the first time Macron had called out Putin this way. In a news conference with Putin soon after his election, Macron singled out Sputnik and RT, the state-funded Russian media organizations, as “being agencies of influence and propaganda, lying propaganda—no more, no less.”