Macron trashes Trumpism after lovefest with US President; calls for return to global engagement

WASHINGTON: After the embrace, the dagger. A day after a public love-fest that generated disbelief and ridicule for its level of touchy-feely intimacy, French President Emmanuel Macron trashed President Trump’s reversal of previous American policies, drawing howls of protest from Trumpists who felt betrayed.
From challenging Trump’s penchant for hypernationalism and isolationism to criticising his withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord and junking the Iran nuclear deal, Macron, in an address to the US Congress repudiated the mercurial US President’s views, going as far as calling the policy u-turns ''insane.''
The speech, delivered in English rather than French, and evidently aimed at Americans, got several standing ovations, with one commentator saying it was as if Macron was reprising Barack Obama.
The turnaround startled analysts, coming as it did hours before Trump faced multiple domestic setbacks: his nominee for Veteran Affairs Secretary had to withdraw from the confirmation process after allegations he was abusive toward colleagues and periodically drunk on duty; his personal lawyer Michael Cohen took the Fifth Amendment in the hush money case involving the porn worker Stormy Daniels; and under attack from former FBI Director James Comey, who said the US President is empty, needy, and in desperate for affirmation, Trump acknowledged an overnight stay in Moscow in 2013, adding to speculation about his Russia business.
But it was Macron’s engagement with Trump and his subsequent evisceration of Trumpism that intrigued foreign policy boffins concerned about where the US is going with its 70+ year alliance with its European allies and Trump’s purported withdrawal from global engagement. With German Chancellor Angela Merkel set to follow him to Washington DC to make the European case, the French President quoted Ronald Reagan (''Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction'') as he reminded Americans that ''there is no planet b'' and boldly predicted ''I am sure, one day, the United States will come back and join the Paris agreement.'' The statement appeared to suggest the US would return to its commitments after Trump's exit.
''Macron used the invitation from President Trump to undermine his entire election campaign, administrative agenda, and most importantly: his supporter base….[He] just spat in the President’s face and Trump appears to have licked his lips and accepted it. At least for now,'' the pro-Trump Breitbart News said in its analysis of the turnaround, surmising that Macron had flattered to deceive Trump knowing his weakness for adulation.
Macron himself was self-deprecatory about his now infamous clinches with Trump the previous day, joking ''it can remind you of something'' while recalling the intimacy Benjamin Franklin shared with Voltaire.
Late-night comics and cynics were less charitable and more graphic as they feasted on the debacle, with Stephen Colbert noting that ''compared with the icy response Trump gets when trying to hold first lady Melania Trump's hand, the two male leaders were practically performing the Kama Sutra.''
''Have you ever seen him touch anyone like that? He gave him the full Stormy Daniels there,'' joked Jimmy Kimmel, while Conan O’Brien skewered him with: ''When President Emmanuel Macron greeted President Trump, he kissed Trump on both cheeks. Then out of habit, Michael Cohen showed up and handed Macron $130,000.''
Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, on Wednesday took the Fifth Amendment -- a constitutional right that allows individuals not to be compelled to testify against themselves -- in a case where he purportedly paid the porn actress Stormy Daniels $ 130,000 in hush money to buy her silence about her alleged one-night stand with Trump.