Hal Brands, Columnist

What Trump Gets Right in His Spat With Macron

He’s correct that Europe could fall apart without the trans-Atlantic alliance. But he’s the one who endangers it.

November 14, 2018 at 3:32 PM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

The end of a beautiful friendship.
Photographer: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

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Donald Trump’s latest disastrous trip to Europe is over, but his feud with French President Emmanuel Macron over the latter’s suggestion of a European Army is not. Far from simply being a tiff between two strong-willed leaders, the dispute demonstrates in microcosm just how dark and precarious the current moment in global politics is.

Trump’s behavior on the international stage is so boorish that it often brings to mind Winston Churchill’s quip about an earlier American statesman being “the only bull I know who carries his own china shop around with him.” Yet it was Macron who precipitated the current spat with comments before Trump’s visit to Paris as he marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.