For US President Donald Trump in Paris, “America first” meant largely the US alone.
At a weekend commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, the president who proudly declares himself a “nationalist” stood apart, even on a continent where his brand of populism is on the rise.
He began his visit with a tweet slamming French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for a European defense force, arrived at events alone and spent much of his trip out of sight in the US ambassadors’ residence in central Paris.
Photo: AP
On Sunday, he listened as he was lectured on the dangers of nationalist isolation, and then he headed home just as the inaugural Paris Peace Summit was getting underway.
The visit made clear that, nearly two years after taking office, Trump has dramatically upended decades of US foreign policy posture, shaking allies.
That includes Macron, who on Sunday said that the “ancient demons” that caused World War I and millions of deaths were once again making headway.
Macron, who has been urging a re-embrace of multinational organizations and cooperation that have been shunned by Trump, delivered a barely veiled rebuke of Trump ideology at the weekend’s centerpiece event: A gathering of dozens of leaders at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the Arc de Triomphe to mark the passage of a century since the guns fell silent in a global war that killed millions.
Bells tolled across Europe’s western front and fighter jets passed overhead to mark the exact moment that the devastating war came to a close.
With Trump and other leaders looking on, Macron took on the rising tide of populism in the US and Europe, and urged leaders not to turn their backs by turning inward.
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” 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.”
After Trump was gone, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who recently announced that she would not be seeking re-election, made an impassioned plea for global cooperation at the peace forum, saying that World War I had “made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have.”
Trump, who has made clear that he has limited patience for broad, multilateral agreements, sat mostly stone-faced as he listened to Macron, who sees himself as Europe’s foil to the rising nationalist sentiment, which has taken hold in Hungary and Poland, among other countries.
Trump did engage with his fellow leaders, attending a group welcome dinner hosted by Macron at the Musee d’Orsay on Saturday night and a lunch on Sunday. He also spent time with Macron on Saturday, when the two stressed their shared desire for more burden-sharing during a quick availability with reporters.
However, Trump was terse during some of his private conversations with world leaders, people with direct knowledge of his visit said.
One of the people described the president as “grumpy.” They spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorized to discuss private conversations.
The symbolism during Trump’s visit could not have been more stark.
Trump was missing from one of the weekend’s most powerful images: A line of world leaders, walking shoulder-to-shoulder in a somber, rain-soaked procession as the bells marking the exact moment that fighting ended — 11am on Nov. 11, 1918 — finished tolling.
The president and first lady Melania Trump had traveled to the commemoration separately — White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders cited security protocols — from the other dignitaries, who had traveled together by bus from the Elysee Palace.
Also traveling on his own was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who shook Trump’s hand, flashed him a thumbs-up sign and patted Trump’s arm as he arrived. Trump responded with a wide smile.
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton had said at one point that Putin and Trump would meet in Paris, but they are instead to hold a formal sit-down later this month at a world leaders’ summit in Buenos Aires.
A Kremlin official later said that US and Russian officials decided to drop plans for the Paris meeting after French officials objected.
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