Macron and Trump Can Team Up on Trade
Unusually, the leaders of the two countries have more common ground than it appears.
Leader envy?
Photograph: Getty Images North America
Trade may look like an issue where Donald Trump and his recent French guest, Emmanuel Macron, can never see eye to eye. The French president pointedly took swipes at his host during his address to a joint session of Congress Wednesday, denouncing trade wars and saying that trade imbalances can only be solved through multilateral means — exactly the opposite of what Trump habitually says about trade.
But the picture of Macron as a ga-ga globalist, and of Trump as a protectionist ideologue, is too simplistic. Indeed, for all their very real differences, they also share priorities, which offers a way for them to work together.