Following their bittersweet showdown in Paris, U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, criticizing him on his joint European military proposal, signaling tariff hikes on French products while hitting him below the belt by mentioning his approval rating.
As his usual treat, Trump salvoed couple of tweets, but probably the most controversial and insulting one was to remind the Frenchmen that the U.S. forces assumed the bulk of the task of liberating France from Nazi Germany. Trump said: “Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two – How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!”
The U.S. president waited for another hour to say that the French are making excellent wines, but the U.S. charges them with small tariffs when compared to U.S. wine imports to France.
Then he take the whole thing to a personal level. “The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%. He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people-and rightfully so!…….. ……MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”
The tweets came after Macron denounced nationalism as “betrayal of patriotism” in a powerful speech in Paris before world leaders, including Trump who often calls himself a nationalist, in a cerremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Macron said, adding that, when nations put their interests first and decide “who cares about the others” they “erase the most precious thing a nation can have … its moral values.”
