Critics pile on after Trump cancels visit to U.S. military cemetery outside Paris
PARIS — President Donald Trump flew 3,800 miles to this French capital city for ceremonies to honour the military sacrifice in First World War, hoping to take part in the kind of powerful ode to the bravery of the armed forces that he was unable to hold in Washington. But on his first full day here, it rained on his substitute parade weekend.
Early Saturday, the White House announced Trump and the first lady had scuttled plans, due to bad weather, for their first stop in the weekend’s remembrance activities — a visit to the solemn Aisne Marne American Cemetery, marking the ferocious Battle of Belleau Wood.
It was not completely clear why the Trumps were unable to attend. The cemetery is 50 miles from Paris. Perhaps the president was planning to travel on Marine One, which is occasionally grounded by the Secret Service.
But the sight of dignitaries arriving at other sites outside Paris, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, led some foreign policy analysts to speculate the U.S. commander in chief just wasn’t up for it.
“It’s incredible that a president would travel to France for this significant anniversary — and then remain in his hotel room watching TV rather than pay in person his respects to the Americans who gave their lives in France for the victory gained 100 years ago tomorrow,” David Frum, who served as a speech writer to former president George W. Bush, wrote in tweets. Trump is actually staying at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris.
So began a weekend in which Trump — battling on a number of political fronts in Washington — seemed distracted and disengaged.
Trump was in France in body but appeared unenthusiastic in spirit.
The White House said Chief of Staff John Kelly and Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, would attend the Belleau ceremony in the Trumps’ absence, but Frum suggested Trump could have tried to scramble a motorcade.
Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, noted he helped plan Obama’s foreign travel throughout his two terms and said it was common to have a backup plan to deal with inclement weather.
“There is always a rain option. Always,” he wrote in a tweet. “Trump will use the U.S. military for a pre-election political stunt but sits in his hotel instead of honouring those who fought and died for America.”
The cemetery has 2,288 gravesites honouring those who died, including many Americans. The names of 1,060 more Americans who went missing and whose bodies were not recovered are engraved on walls at the site.
Trump is still planning to attend the featured ceremony under the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday where more than 100 world leaders will pay homage to the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Great War.
After another scheduled visit to a ceremony on Sunday, the president plans to fly home just as Macron’s Paris Peace Forum kicks off for three days of meetings aimed at galvanizing global action on shared challenges, such as climate change.