Donald Trump is an American President that thinks small….
Last week he was eclipsed by a young French President that stepped up to the plate when Trump did NOT…Excuse me…Could NOT…He’s just not up for the job……The hard pushing he does up front has gotten old….
Donald Trump is no longer allowed to steal the show — at least not when it’s being held on Europe’s stage.
At a G7 summit in Quebec last June, and a NATO leaders’ summit in Brussels a month later, the American president grabbed the limelight and disrupted proceedings, leaving his counterparts reeling and struggling to contain any damage.
After Trump landed in Paris Friday evening and immediately fired off a provocative tweet accusing Macron of being “very insulting,” the French president did make an effort at a meeting with Trump on Saturday morning to smooth over the differences. The American president appeared to have misinterpreted a call from Macron for an EU army. Ahead of his meeting with Trump in the Elysée Palace, the French president said he agrees with his counterpart’s call for European allies to spend more on their militaries.
But Macron also went on CNN — the U.S. cable network that Trump loathes — and gave an interview in which he pushed back hard, saying that while Europe should spend more, he did not want the money going to purchases of American-weapons and other hardware.
“What I don’t want to see is European countries increasing the budget in defense in order to buy Americans’ and other arms or materials coming from your industry,” Macron said on Fareed Zakaria’s “Global Public Square” program. “I think if we increase our budget, it’s to have to build our autonomy and to become an actual sovereign power.”
European officials said they now have enough experience with Trump to know what to expect and that a soft stance is pointless.
“Sometimes it’s better to be more assertive and have a clear idea of the point you yourself want to make,” said one European official who helped prepare for bilateral interaction with Trump. “He’s a power player — so he respects more those who will push back a little than those who will just lay down on the ground.”
Macron delivered a particularly dramatic pushback against Trump’s “America First” ideology during a speech at the formal Armistice centennial commemoration Sunday morning…..
image….Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Morocco’s Prince Moulay Hassan and King Mohammed VI, U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Australian Governor-General Peter Cosgrove and his wife Lynne Cosgrove, Chad’s President Idriss Deby and his wife Hinda Deby Itno and Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images