A rift between the leaders has deepened after the US president blasted the ‘stupidity’ of Britain’s ‘Chagos Islands deal and renewed US claims to Greenland.
Donald Trump told UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer French president Emmanuel Macron to ‘straighten out their countries’
Trump also suggested that both Starmer and Macron were two-faced. He said: “(They) treat me well. They get a little bit rough when … I’m not around, but when I’m around, they treat me very nicely.”
The Telegraph reports: Mr Trump said he would snub an emergency meeting of the G7 that Mr Macron had proposed could take place in Paris. The US president suggested his French counterpart would not be around “much longer”.
“Emmanuel is not going to be there very long. And you know, there’s no longevity there. He’s a friend of mine. He’s a nice guy. I like Macron, but, but he’s not, he’s not going to be there very much longer,” he said.
Mr Trump was due to depart for the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday night, but his plane was forced to turn around mid-air because of a “minor electrical issue”. Mr Trump and his entourage will switch to another plane and continue the trip to Davos.
The incident took place hours after the US president renewed his threat to take Greenland and criticised Sir Keir’s Chagos deal as “an act of stupidity”.
The US president said “London is having a lot of problems”, when asked how he would characterise his relationship with the Prime Minister.
“They’ve [Starmer and Macron] got to straighten out their countries. London is having a lot of problems,” the US president told reporters.
Earlier on Tuesday, European leaders hit back at Mr Trump, warning against bullying on the world stage and calling for appeasement of the US president to end.
Emmanuel Macron led the response after Mr Trump published a private text message (below) from the French president, renewed his promise to annex Greenland and attacked Sir Keir’s deal to give away the Chagos Islands.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said of the Diego Garcia military base on the islands: “Shockingly, our “brilliant” NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.”
In a thinly veiled swipe at Mr Trump at Davos, Mr Macron later said: “We do prefer respect to bullies. And we do prefer rule of law to brutality.”
The French president, one of the driving forces behind Europe’s push to be strategically independent of Washington, warned that “imperial ambitions” were resurfacing among major powers.
After Mr Macron’s speech, Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, suggested Europe must take a harder line with Mr Trump.
“Europe cannot afford to be weak, neither against its enemies, nor ally. Appeasement means no results, only humiliation. European assertiveness and self-confidence have become the need of the moment,” he said.
Despite the rhetoric, however, Europe appeared divided and without a concrete plan ahead of Mr Trump’s expected arrival at the Swiss summit on Wednesday, where he is due to hold talks with the head of Nato.
Mr Trump insists the US must own the mineral-rich island of Greenland to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic.
“I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for national and world security,” Mr Trump wrote on social media on Tuesday. “There can be no going back – on that, everyone agrees!”
Sir Keir said Britain was prepared to “play its part to protect Arctic security alongside Nato” in a call with the president of the European Council, Downing Street said.
A No 10 spokesman said: “The Prime Minister spoke to the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, this evening.