Trump and Macron tout their friendship and shared aims for Europe after insult tweet
Hours after President Trump declared French President Emmanuel Macron "very insulting" for his recent advocacy of a "true European army," the two leaders touted their friendship and minimized differences Saturday afternoon.
"We have become very good friends over the last couple of years. We're very much similar in our views," Trump said of the French president. "We want a strong Europe; it's very important to us, and whichever way we can do it the best and more efficient would be something we both want," he continued. "We want to help Europe but it has to be fair. Right now the burden sharing has been largely on the United States."
Macron continued to argue for "more European capacities, more European defense," though he couched it in language closer to Trump's gripes about burden sharing. "It's unfair to have the European security today being assured just by the United States," Macron said. "When President Trump has to protect or to defend one of the states of the United States, he doesn't ask France or Germany, or another government of Europe to finance it."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Disney bets big on AI but not everyone sees a winnerTalking Points The company will allow users to create their own AI content on Disney+
-
The Beast in Me: a ‘gleefully horrible story’The Week Recommends Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys star in a ‘gleefully horrible story’
-
Comey grand jury never saw final indictmentSpeed Read This ‘drove home just how slapdash’ the case is, said The New York Times
-
Court strikes down Texas GOP gerrymanderSpeed Read The Texas congressional map ordered by Trump is likely an illegal racial gerrymander, the court ruled
-
Trump defends Saudi prince, shrugs off Khashoggi murderSpeed Read The president rebuked an ABC News reporter for asking Mohammed bin Salman about the death of a Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Consulate in 2018
-
Congress passes bill to force release of Epstein filesSpeed Read The Justice Department will release all files from its Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation
-
Trump says he will sell F-35 jets to Saudi ArabiaSpeed Read The president plans to make several deals with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman this week
-
Judge blasts ‘profound’ errors in Comey caseSpeed Read ‘Government misconduct’ may necessitate dismissing the charges against the former FBI director altogether
-
Ecuador rejects push to allow US military basesSpeed Read Voters rejected a repeal of a constitutional ban on US and other foreign military bases in the country
-
Trump pivots on Epstein vote amid GOP defectionsSpeed Read The president said House Republicans should vote on a forced release of the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
