![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Macron the latest US ally insulted by Trump Washington, Nov 13 (AFP) Nov 13, 2018 President Donald Trump's Twitter-lashing of his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron is only the latest insult by the US leader against longstanding allies. Here are some memorable barbs from Trump, who has brazenly defied traditional diplomatic convention not to speak ill of allies in public:
Trump, whose Armistice Day trip to Paris drew domestic criticism after he skipped a cemetery visit due to rain, ridiculed Macron for his low approval rating and said there was "no country more nationalist than France." He threatened to slap tariffs on French wine and again criticized Macron for supporting European-wide defense outside NATO, the alliance to which Trump says the United States pays too much.
Trump refused to sign a customary statement by the Group of Seven industrial nations after a June summit in Quebec led by Trudeau. Leaving early to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump tweeted that Trudeau was "very dishonest and weak" and had acted "mild and meek" in meetings before criticizing US tariffs at a news conference.
Trump has repeatedly intervened rhetorically in Germany's sensitive debate over immigration, after Merkel in 2015 opened Germany's borders and ultimately let in more than one million asylum seekers. Trump in June tweeted that Germans were "turning against their leadership" over the "big mistake" on immigration and incorrectly said that crime was "way up" in Germany.
Just as he was visiting Britain this year, on an invitation for which May faced domestic criticism, Trump told a London newspaper that May's party rival Boris Johnson would be a "great prime minister" and poured cold water on May's hopes for a trade deal with the United States if Britain stayed in the EU single market. Trump has also repeatedly assailed London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who is Muslim, taking out of context Khan's calls for calm after an attack and then calling Khan's explanation "pathetic."
Trump hung up on Australia's then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, after brusquely criticizing a deal on refugee settlement reached under previous US president Barack Obama, according to The Washington Post. The two leaders later appeared to patch up through a series of friendly encounters, arranged in part by Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul who owns Fox News, Trump's favorite channel.
Trump, however, has been unusually restrained in his public remarks about Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador and his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto, who reportedly had a contentious phone call with the US leader.
Trump at a news conference last week said that Japan "has treated us very unfairly" and, according to The Washington Post, startled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a June summit by quipping, "I remember Pearl Harbor," imperial Japan's 1941 sneak attack on the US Pacific fleet.
|
|
All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.
|