Britain joined Germany on Saturday in criticizing French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to block a trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur group of southern American countries to pressure Brazil on Amazon forest fires.

Axar.az reports citing Reuters.

In a surprise statement on Friday, Macron said he had decided to block the EU-Mercosur deal and accused Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of lying in playing down concerns about climate change.

After landing in the seaside French resort of Biarritz, where Macron is hosting a summit of G7 countries, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticized the decision, a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office did the same in Berlin.

“There are all sorts of people who will take any excuse at all to interfere with trade and to frustrate trade deals and I don’t want to see that,” Johnson told reporters.

Late on Friday, a spokesman for Merkel said not concluding the trade deal with the Mercosur countries of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay was “not the appropriate answer to what is happening in Brazil now.”

“The non-conclusion of the Mercosur agreement would not help to reduce forest destruction in Brazil,” the spokesman added.

An official at Macron’s office said the French leader had later explained his position to Merkel. “It is something the president explained to the Chancellor so she understands the position he took yesterday and that’s something she understood very well,” the official said.