TRUMP STOOD ALONE IN FRANCE.
PARIS • For President Donald Trump in Paris, America First meant largely America alone.
The president who proudly declares himself a “nationalist” stood apart, even on a continent where his brand of populism is on the rise.
He began his visit with a tweet slamming the French president’s call for a European defence force, arrived at events alone and spent much of his trip out of sight in the American ambassadors’ residence in central Paris. On Sunday, he listened as he was lectured on the dangers of nationalist isolation, and then he headed home just as the inaugural Paris Peace Summit was getting underway.
The visit made clear that, nearly two years after taking office, Trump has dramatically upended decades of American foreign policy posture, shaking allies.
Trump did engage with his fellow leaders, attending a group welcome dinner hosted by Macron at the Musée d’Orsay on Saturday night and a lunch on Sunday. He also spent time with Macron on Saturday, when the two stressed their shared desire for more burden-sharing during a quick availability with reporters.
But Trump was terse during some of his private conversations with world leaders, according to people with direct knowledge of his visit. One of the people described the president as “grumpy.”
The symbolism couldn’t have been more stark.
Trump was missing from one of the weekend’s most powerful images: A line of world leaders, walking shoulder to-shoulder in a sombre, rain-soaked procession as the bells marking the exact moment that fighting ended — 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918 — finished tolling.
The president and first lady Melania Trump had travelled to the commemoration separately from the other dignitaries, who had travelled together by bus from the Élysée Palace.
Trump has repeatedly branded himself a “nationalist,” despite criticism from some that the term has negative connotations. At a news conference last week, Trump defended his use of the phrase.
“You know what the word is? I love our country,” he said, adding: “You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and I don’t mind helping the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems.”
But Trump did not broach the divide as he paid tribute Sunday to U.S. and allied soldiers killed in the First World War during “a horrible, horrible war” that marked America’s emergence as a world power.
“We are gathered together at this hallowed resting place to pay tribute to the brave Americans who gave their last breath in that mighty struggle,” Trump said at the Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial in the suburbs of Paris, where more than 1,500 Americans who died in the war are buried.