Trump Shouldn’t Gloat About the Paris Riots
The gilets jaunes are pushing for more wealth taxes too, an idea that’s gaining plenty of traction with fed-up Americans and Brits.
France's yellow jackets are morphing into a wealth tax movement. That should trouble billionaire president Donald Trump.
Photographer: Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump is enjoying Emmanuel Macron’s struggles with the gilets jaunes. In a tweet this week, he said the French had come around to his skepticism about the Paris climate change agreement and the cost of fighting global warming.
The billionaire U.S. president should be less smug. What started as a howl of anger about fuel duties is fast morphing into a broader movement to get the rich to pay their fair share of taxes overall. The same forces that are now pressuring Macron to reverse his tax breaks for the wealthy — which he’s resisting — could easily take root in Trump’s America or Brexit Britain. Justifiably so, if inequality is any guide.