Failing Bigly

For the first 18 months of Trump’s volatile presidency, European leaders shell-shocked by the American’s bombast, especially his provocative rhetoric that seemed to call into question the very pillars of the transatlantic relationship, sought to soothe tensions by minimizing disagreements, and giving Trump space to adjust to his role as leader of the free world.

They shuddered as Trump applauded Brexit and expressed disdain for the EU, but they mostly held their tongues. They pulled their punches when he contemplated pulling out of the Paris climate change accords. When he moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, they quietly stated that they thought it an unhelpful mistake. When he slammed European allies for not spending enough on their militaries, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg assured him that he is right.

But Trump’s thinly veiled threat to withdraw from NATO at last summer’s leaders’ summit left leaders deeply unsettled. His unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord shows he has no respect for past agreements, even the Iran deal, which is enshrined in a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Most recently, Trump’s announcement that he is pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty sent a message to Europe that he truly does not care about their security. The INF treaty, which eliminated all missiles and launchers with a range of 500 to 1,000 kilometers, first and foremost serves to protect Europe. It was Trump’s callous disregard for the treaty’s importance that led Macron in an interview broadcast last week to call for an EU army to help defend its people.

Even as Trump touched down in Paris, Europe was already firing shots at him — though there is a good chance he was unaware of it. On the occasion of Trump’s visit — his second to Paris as president — France’s most prominent newspaper, Le Monde, began publishing a three-part series on the diplomatic damage Trump has wrought. The first instalment opens with a description of the leaders of the Baltic nations — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — returning from a visit to the White House aghast because Trump had made remarks about their responsibility for the war in Yugoslavia, apparently mistaking the Baltics for the Balkans.

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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.

But European leaders have wised up. French President Emmanuel Macron showed at commemorations in Paris for the World War I Armistice centenary over the weekend that there is a new approach. No longer will Europe simply appease and contain Trump, as they did for the first 18 months of his unorthodox presidency. Instead, they are now prepared to push back and isolate Trump if necessary, denying him the attention he craves.

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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.

  Politico

Thank goodness we still have Saudi Arabia to sell our weapons to.

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.”

He respects no one.

Macron and the Elysée Palace appeared to move assertively to prevent Trump from stealing any thunder from the historical import of the day. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was immediately by Macron’s side at the formal ceremony — in a powerful show that the somber day belonged more than anything to France and Germany (Theresa May had declined an invitation to represent Britain at the ceremony, instead playing her role in extensive commemorations in London on Saturday and Sunday.)

Let me guess...she was afraid to be seen to be taking a stance with her European counterparts against Trump.

Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had seats close by — but it was clear that they were supporting cast members — not the main attraction of the day.

Interfax, the Russian news agency, also reported that the seating plan of a leaders’ luncheon following the ceremony was designed to keep Trump and Putin apart. Instead, the Russian news agency, reported, Trump was placed in between United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Yury Ushakov, a high-level foreign policy adviser to Putin, told Interfax that Macron’s office “quite persistently” asked that Putin and Trump not hold a bilateral meeting that would inevitably draw attention away from the formal program.

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Trump arrived in his own motorcade at the ceremony (for security reasons, a White House spokesperson said) and appeared on the dais later than most of the other leaders.

For security reasons. Sure.

They had arrived together by bus and formed a somber umbrella-carrying crowd. Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the center along with Merkel, Juncker and an array of other familiar European faces, processed toward the Paris monument beneath a flypast of French jets trailing red, white and blue smoke.

But Trump’s solo arrival, with other leaders already in their places, was quickly upstaged by Putin who was the last major leader to appear — at least as television showed it. His motorcade, like Trump’s, had arrived quite a bit earlier.

After lunch, Trump also skipped a Peace Forum attended by Macron and Merkel and instead went off on his own to visit an American military ceremony [...] Evidently more comfortable at a U.S.-organized event, Trump pointedly declared it the “highlight” of the trip.

They did their best to steal the show, as pathetic as their best is.

Europe’s new assertiveness was not only on display in Paris. In a speech in Poland on Saturday, European Council President Donald Tusk bluntly took Trump to task.

“Today for the first time in history we have an American administration which, to put it delicately, is not very enthusiastically tuned in to a united, strong Europe. And I’m talking here about facts, not about propaganda statements,” Tusk said. “And I say this as someone who has — let’s say — the satisfaction of having fairly frequent direct exchanges with the president of the United States.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.