{"id":64118,"date":"2018-04-26T06:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T06:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=64118"},"modified":"2018-04-26T06:00:56","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T06:00:56","slug":"after-hugging-trump-macron-tears-down-trumpism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/after-hugging-trump-macron-tears-down-trumpism.html","title":{"rendered":"After hugging Trump, Macron tears down Trumpism"},"content":{"rendered":"

After hugging Trump, Macron tears down Trumpism<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before French President Emmanuel Macron delivered an address at a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday, the headlines about his trip to Washington centered on his apparent \u201cbromance\u201d with President Trump. On Tuesday, the duo engaged in a series of physical embraces and celebrated both their personal rapport as well as the \u201cunbreakable\u201d bonds between France and the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

But on Wednesday, as his three-day visit drew to a close, Macron shifted the story dramatically. In his speech to American lawmakers, he offered a comprehensive rejection of the main tenets of Trumpism, excoriating \u201cextreme nationalism\u201d and protectionism, championing climate-change science and defending the international liberal order. \u201cYou can play with anger and fear for a time,\u201d Macron said, alluding to the themes that fuel right-wing nationalist movements in the West, \u201cbut they do not construct anything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Macron went on, urging his American audience to look beyond borders and walls. \u201cWe can choose isolationism. But closing the door to the world will not stop the evolution of the world,\u201d he said. And he bristled at the rise of autocrats and illiberal democrats, which include some leaders favored by Trump: \u201cI don\u2019t share fascination for new strong powers and the illusion of nationalism,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Macron also cast a skeptical eye at Trump’s efforts to slap tariffs on imports from allies and undermine existing free-trade deals. To Macron, this bid to boost American manufacturing jobs at home \u2014 combined with Trump’s dismissals of climate change as a \u201choax\u201d \u2014 was counterproductive and shortsighted.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSome people think that securing current industries and their jobs is more urgent than transforming our economies to meet the challenge of global change,\u201d he said. In the final analysis, he suggested, the impasse cannot last. \u201cIn the long run, we will have to face the same realities,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re just citizens of the same planet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s no \u201cPlanet B,\u201d Macron pointed out, echoing an earlier argument he made about there being no \u201cPlan B\u201d for the Iran nuclear deal that Trump wants to dismantle. Then he drew thunderous applause from Democrats with this confident declaration: \u201cI am sure one day the United States will come back and join the Paris agreement.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, Macron also played the role of the proud transatlantic ally. He hailed the historic French-American friendship and the two countries’ shared sacrifices from World War II to the current fight against Islamist militant groups in various parts of the world. And he predictably appealed to a love of liberty and the many other cultural connections between the two countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Macron also summoned legacies largely ignored by Trump. He used his moment in Congress to celebrate the work of James Baldwin, Richard Wright and other icons of the civil rights struggle in America. Not long thereafter, he toured the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights hero who branded Trump a \u201cracist\u201d earlier this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHuman rights, the rights of minorities and shared liberty are the true answers to the disorder of the world,\u201d Macron said to Congress. Meanwhile, across the street at the Supreme Court, the Trump administration pressed its case to impose blanket travel bans on certain Muslim-majority countries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, while Macron launched pointed barbs at the Trump administration, he sought to flatter American egos. There are few things Washington officialdom loves to discuss more than the importance of American leadership in the world. Macron did not disappoint. He reminded Democrats and Republicans that the nuclear deal Congress approved in 2015 was worth defending, and that the alternatives \u2014 a confrontation that may lead to war with Iran \u2014 would \u201creplicate past mistakes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He also told his audience of the importance of the world order that \u201cyou built,\u201d pointing to the institutions and international norms developed after World War II. \u201cThe United States is the one who invented this multilateralism,\u201d Macron said, invoking a term explicitly decried by Trump officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou are the one now who has to help preserve and reinvent it,\u201d he added, calling on Washington to help build a new world order \u201cbased on a more effective, accountable, and results-oriented multilateralism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What that looks like in practice is less clear, nor is it certain that Macron’s efforts (and those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who arrives in Washington on Thursday) to dissuade Trump from scuttling the Iran deal will work. And so Macron used the weighty moment to frame himself in opposition to the White House before returning to Europe, where he faces tough political tests both at home and in Brussels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\nMacron \u201csolidified his standing as leader of the West (to the extent there still is a West) by his call today before Congress for an updated liberal world order to meet regional, global challenges,\u201d tweeted Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a doyen of the Washington policy establishment. \u201cHis problem is a lack of partners in Europe and here in U.S.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most likely result is that the American president won\u2019t pay attention to what Macron was trying to say \u2014 indeed, that he won\u2019t even understand that he has been so openly challenged,\u201d wrote Post columnist Anne Applebaum. \u201cAnd that may have been the point, for Macron\u2019s speech will be perfectly understood in France, in Europe, and even in the United States (at least outside the White House).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, an inveterate Atlanticist, echoed the sentiments of many in her milieu with a tweeted jab at Trump: \u201cIt has been too long since a President delivered a speech in Washington about the need to defend democracy and support international cooperation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Source:-https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/worldviews\/wp\/2018\/04\/26\/after-hugging-trump-macron-tears-down-trumpism\/?utm_term=.69964a2aa882<\/span><\/p>\n

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