Trump in Europe — again

Nobody on the Trump election team would have said that foreign policy was his strongest suit. He is the least well-read president for decades and has all the cultural sensitivity of a falling brick. His relations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel are best described as ‘frosty’ and with the British somewhat ambiguous, and any visit to the Sceptred Isle now deferred until next year. Maybe. Yet he accepted with alacrity an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the Bastille Day celebrations and that only three days after he got home from the G-20 summit.

The two make unlikely partners, and at first sight are polar opposites but both are opportunists — after all Macron upended the entire French political system with his entry into the presidential race, a usurping not unlike that achieved by Trump. There is an opportunity to re-forge the alliance between France and America and what better opportunity to do that than the French national day? A day of pomp and ceremony and symbolism and parades attended by the great though not necessarily the good — and if there is one thing Trump likes it is to be seen looking presidential as he surveys serried ranks of marching men and women.

Ostensibly the two are to talk Syria and counter-terrorism, and with the Syrian bloodbath on the agenda of everybody and France on the wrong end of terrorism there is much to say. Indeed it may be a chance for France, once a colonial power in the Middle East, to up its game. It has sent its foreign minister to mediate in the Gulf which is generally considered to be the bailiwick of the British. The symbolism will not be lost on Trump who may indeed lack a nuanced appreciation of the subtleties of French culture but understands well the value of the application of grunt delivered by the back door. Strange — but not so strange — bedfellows.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2017.

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