100 years on from the Armistice, is Europe headed for another Great War?

And then a stupid, ignorant moron blundered into Europe for the Armistice commemorations…

from The New York Times…

Bonhomie? C'est Fini as Trump and Macron Seek to Defuse Tension.

President Trump's meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France appeared far chillier
than their earlier warm sessions, demonstrating how the relationship has soured.

By PETER BAKER and ADAM NOSSITER | Saturday, November 10, 2018

President Emmanuel Macron of France welcomed President Donald Trump at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Saturday.
— Photograph: Tom Brenner/for The New York Times.

PARIS — They shook hands politely and patted each other on the arm stiffly. Their tight-lipped smiles appeared strained and forced. No cheeks were kissed, no friendly rubs were given, none of the bonhomie of their earlier meetings was on display.

So much for the bromance.

After a promising start, the relationship between President Trump and President Emmanuel Macron of France has soured. By the time they met in Paris on Saturday, the trans-Atlantic alliance that was to be showcased by this weekend's commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I appeared to be fraying instead.

“The honeymoon is well and truly over,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump's visible contempt for allies over trade and the Iran nuclear deal are humiliating for Macron. There were high hopes of Macron's charm offensive, but Trump's actions have shown that it had no policy impact and that it is dangerous for any political leader to tie his reputation to the mercurial mood swings of the American president.”

It did not help on Saturday that Mr. Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was fought. Aides cited the rain; the Marines who pilot presidential helicopters often recommend against flying in bad weather. But that did not convince many in Europe who saw it as an excuse and another sign of disrespect.

“They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn't even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen,” Nicholas Soames, a Conservative member of the British Parliament and grandson of Winston Churchill, wrote on Twitter. He added the hashtag: #hesnotfittorepresenthisgreatcountry.

Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, dismissed the explanation. “I helped plan all of President Obama's trips for 8 years,” he tweeted. “There is always a rain option. Always.”

Mr. Trump will have another chance to pay respects to the war dead on Sunday with a scheduled visit to the Suresnes American Cemetery outside Paris following the ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe marking the anniversary of the armistice at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. But he will not stay for a Paris peace forum that Mr. Macron is sponsoring to bring together world leaders to discuss ways to avoid conflict.

“Trump's absence from the Peace forum tomorrow, apparently alone among the 72 heads of state and government, will have a negative impact — the man who did not even pretend to work for peace, as it were,” said François Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a research organization.

In a five-minute session with reporters before their meeting on Saturday, Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron sought to defuse simmering tension over security and trade. Mr. Macron reassured his visitor that his proposal to create a “true European army” was in harmony with Mr. Trump's repeated insistence that Europe stop relying so much on the United States for its defense.

“I do share President Trump's views that we need much better burden-sharing within NATO, and that’s why I do believe my proposals for European defense are utterly consistent with that,” Mr. Macron said with Mr. Trump at the Élysée Palace.

Mr. Trump, who had called the idea of a European army “very insulting” in a tweet three minutes after Air Force One landed in France on Friday, said he was glad to hear Mr. Macron's reasoning. “He understands the United States can only do so much, in fairness to the United States,” Mr. Trump said.

The flap may have resulted from misleading accounts of Mr. Macron's comments, which came in an interview in French with Europe 1 radio this week. In the interview, Mr. Macron said that Europe needed to defend itself against the United States as well as Russia and China, but he was referring to cyber-threats, not the American government. The discussion of a European army actually came up later in the interview, and he characterized it as lightening America's burden, not defending against it.

Still, Mr. Macron was critical in the interview of Mr. Trump's move to scrap the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, a three-decade-old agreement that eliminated a whole class of missiles stationed in and aimed at Europe. The United States has accused Russia of violating the treaty and Mr. Trump seems focused on whether such missiles might be useful in countering China, but European leaders see it as reopening a threat to their own countries.

“When I see President Trump announcing that he’s quitting a major disarmament treaty, which was formed after the 1980s euro-missile crisis that hit Europe, who is the main victim?” Mr. Macron said in the interview. “Europe and its security.”

The tense meeting with Mr. Trump contrasted with Mr. Macron's joint appearance with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany later in the day. At a solemn ceremony in the woods outside the northern town of Compiègne where the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, the two leaders stood in front of a plaque celebrating peace and Franco-German friendship.

President Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany laid a wreath at a solemn ceremony in the woods outside the northern town of Compiègne,
France, where the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. — Photograph: Etienne Laurent/European Pressphoto Agency/via Shutterstock.

It was the first time a German leader had returned to the spot where both World War I and World War II armistices were concluded. After conquering France in 1940, Adolf Hitler forced the defeated French to return to the same railway car used in 1918 to consecrate Germany's defeat, a way of humiliating his vanquished foe.

On Saturday, Mr. Macron and Ms. Merkel entered a similar car that now sits inside a museum at the site and sat glumly side by side for a few moments. The original car was destroyed during the second war and much at the site razed on Hitler's orders. The ceremony, simple yet symbolic, was over in 45 minutes, after the French and German national anthems were sung.

“The symbolism of it is, it's not just a question of military victory, or military defeat, but of friendship between France and Germany, and also that both sides have overcome this defeat,” said Sylvain Fort, a top aide to Mr. Macron. “We've overcome this defeat to build a friendship that's lasted 70 years.”

The meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Macron earlier in the day seemed decidedly chillier than their warm session in Washington D.C. in April when they smiled broadly, hugged, kissed each other on the cheeks and lavished praise on each other. During their short appearance before reporters, Mr. Trump remained formal and distant. When he avoided sharp language in front of the cameras, Mr. Macron appeared relieved and patted Mr. Trump's leg appreciatively.

“We have become very good friends over the last couple of years,” Mr. Trump said, with none of the enthusiasm of last spring. “We have much in common in many ways — perhaps more ways than people would understand. But we are — we're very much similar in our views.”

Mr. Macron referred to Mr. Trump as “my good friend” and said they had “worked very closely together” in countering Syria's use of chemical weapons. “Our people are very proud to have you here,’’ he said.

A major point of contention is Mr. Trump's decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran following his withdrawal from the multinational accord intended to curb the country's nuclear program. The French want to continue doing business with Iran and resent pressure by the Americans.

The Trump administration waived the sanctions for eight countries, but France was not among them. One of Mr. Macron's senior advisers complained about bullying by Washington earlier this week. “Europe refuses to allow the U.S. to be the trade policeman of the world,” Bruno Le Maire, the economy minister, told The Financial Times.

The two sides remain at odds over broader trade issues as well. Mr. Trump has slapped steel and aluminum tariffs on Europe and other trading partners, and has threatened tariffs on cars manufactured in Europe.

Mr. Trump said negotiations to ease the tariff war have been promising. “We've made a lot of progress,” he said. “We'll see if we can get it over the line, as they say.”

Mr. Trump remains deeply unpopular in Europe, especially in France, where just 9 percent think he will do the right thing in international relations, according to the Pew Research Center. The president's seeming indifference to European sensibilities was reinforced by a report in Le Monde, the French newspaper, that in a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year, Mr. Trump confused the Baltic states for Balkan states and blamed them for the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Mr. Macron understands the importance of maintaining the relationship, said Karen Donfried, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. But “domestically,” she said, “it may be better for him if the bromance has cooled visibly.”

Charles A. Kupchan, a former Europe adviser to Mr. Obama, said that Europe has all but given up on Mr. Trump and is focused instead on developing its own “strategic autonomy” to make it less dependent on the United States.

“Trump might be able to retain decent working relationships with populist governments in Italy, Poland, and Hungary,” he said. “But the rest of Europe is resigned to running out the clock, hoping and praying that Trump is a one-term president.”

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• Peter Baker reported from Paris, and Adam Nossiter from Compiègne, France. Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Paris.

• Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times covering President Donald J. Trump. He previously covered the presidencies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mr. Baker joined The Times in 2008 after 20 years at The Washington Post. He began writing about Mr. Obama at the inception of his administration, through health care and economic debates, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the re-election campaign and decisions over war and peace in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. During his first tour at the White House, Mr. Baker was a co-author of the original story breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal and served as The Post's lead writer on the impeachment battle. During his next White House assignment, he covered the travails of Mr. Bush's second term, from the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina to Supreme Court nomination fights and the economy. In between stints at the White House, Mr. Baker and his wife, Susan Glasser, spent four years as Moscow bureau chiefs, chronicling the rise of Vladimir V. Putin, the rollback of Russian democracy, the second Chechen war and the terrorist attacks on a theater in Moscow and a school in Beslan. Mr. Baker also covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was the first American newspaper journalist to report from rebel-held northern Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, and he spent the next eight months covering the overthrow of the Taliban and the emergence of a new government. He later spent six months in the Middle East, reporting from inside Saddam Hussein's Iraq and around the region before embedding with the United States Marines as they drove toward Baghdad. He is the author of four books, most recently “Obama: The Call of History”, an illustrated history of the 44th president. A native of the Washington area, Mr. Baker attended Oberlin College.

• Adam Nossiter has been a Paris correspondent for The New York Times since July 2015. Previously, Mr. Nossiter served as the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, starting in 2009. He served as a N.Y. Times national correspondent in New Orleans from 2006 to 2009. Before that, he did varying stints as a Times reporter from 2005 to 2006 and from 1995 to 1996. He also worked as a Times stringer from 1992 to 1994 and from 1996 to 1997. Before joining The New York Times, Mr. Nossiter worked for the Associated Press as a Louisiana political reporter from 2003 to 2005. From 1987 to 1991, he was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, specifically focusing on Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Before that, he worked for the St. Petersburg Times as a reporter from 1985 to 1987. Mr. Nossiter began his career at The Anniston Star, where he worked as a reporter from 1984 to 1985. Mr. Nossiter led The New York Times team that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for coverage of the Ebola epidemic. He also won a George Polk award in 2015 for the coverage of the disease. Mr. Nossiter is the author of “France and the Nazis: Memories, Lies and the Second World War” (Methuen Publishing Ltd., 2003) and “The Algeria Hotel: France, Memory and the Second World War” (Houghton Mifflin Co., Methuen, 2001). He also wrote “Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers” (Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1994), for which he was a finalist for the Southern Regional Council’s Lillian Smith Award for best Southern non-fiction in 1994. He has had featured articles in The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, Le Monde, the National Journal, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune Book Review. Mr. Nossiter graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in history and literature of France from Harvard University in 1982. He was awarded a University Fellowship to do graduate work in French history from Yale University in 1983, which he politely declined. Mr. Nossiter speaks fluent French and lives in Paris with his wife and two sons.

• A version of this article appears in The New York Times on Sunday, November 11, 2018, on Page A8 of the New York print edition with the headline: “Trump Meets With France's President, and This Time It's Not Buddy-Buddy”.

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