U.S. President Donald Trump was back on the attack early Tuesday, slamming French President Emmanuel Macron, his low approval rating, France’s high unemployment rate and tariffs on wine is a series of tweets.
As background, Macron suggested the European Union build its own military and stop relying solely on the U.S., a point Trump himself has made. Macron also said Europe needs to protect itself from cyberthreats from China, Russia and the U.S., three countries who were conspicuous in their absence by not being among the 50 countries and 150-plus tech companies that pledged Monday to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet.
“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!” Trump said in the first of five tweets.
Trump has long lamented the fact that NATO countries don’t pay their fair share of the defense alliance’s expenses, leaving the U.S. to foot the bill. Trump and Macron met Saturday to discuss defense and trade at a weekend ceremony in Paris commemorating 100 years since the end of World War I.
Trump then turned the page by slamming France for its tariffs on U.S. wine before hitting Macron over his “low Approval Rating” of 26 percent and an unemployment rate near 10 percent.
“On Trade, France makes excellent wine, but so does the U.S. The problem is that France makes it very hard for the U.S. to sell its wines into France, and charges big Tariffs, whereas the U.S. makes it easy for French wines, and charges very small Tariffs. Not fair, must change!
“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!” Trump concluded the tweet storm.
For his part, Macron has already said he doesn’t do diplomacy via Twitter, and declined to comment.
“I don’t know, I’m not the one to comment on his tweets. I always prefer having direct discussions or answering questions instead of making my diplomacy through tweets,” Macron said late last week in an interview before Trump’s latest salvos.