Trump snubs Britain and will head to Paris instead
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to visit Emmanuel Macron in Paris next month, despite putting off his state visit to Britain.
Yesterday’s announcement by the French president’s office that Mr Trump will attend the traditional Bastille Day parade heaped fresh embarrassment on Downing Street.
It sits in stark contrast to the continued obfuscation over the US President’s trip to the UK which was agreed five months ago but shows no sign of actually happening. There was no mention of Mr Trump coming to Britain in the Queen’s Speech last week.
The monarch uses the address to inform Parliament of such events but the US President’s trip was absent from her outline of the Government’s programme for the next two years.
A No10 spokesman has said the visit had not been mentioned as ‘a date hasn’t been fixed yet’.
Theresa May invited Mr Trump on behalf of the Queen when she met him in Washington DC in January just a week after his inauguration. But both sides have failed to set a date amid reports Mr Trump has been put off by the threat of large-scale protests.
He is said to have told the Prime Minister in a phone call this month that he does not want to go ahead until the British public supports him coming and could even scrap his visit entirely.
Mr Trump’s decision to go to France first is doubly humiliating as his relationship with Mr Macron has been strained for months.
They are separated by wildly differing political views, particularly on Europe, and shared a six-second, white-knuckle handshake when they met in Brussels in May. The uneasy exchange looked as if Mr Macron, who at 39 is three decades younger, was trying to crush his older counterpart’s hand.
Relations were further soured when Mr Trump described French presidential rival Marine Le Pen as the ‘strongest’ candidate.
He also incensed officials by saying Paris was not the attractive city it had been before being hit by terror attacks.
In recent days, however, Mr Macron has softened his tone and acknowledged the need to work with the Trump administration.
He made the invitation after phoning the White House to discuss how the two countries could respond to another chemical weapon attack by the Syrian government.
In recent weeks, Mr Trump has courted controversy, particularly when he mocked London Mayor Sadiq Khan over his response to the London Bridge terror attack.
The US President was also widely criticised for pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Mrs May expressed her ‘disappointment’ at his decision.
This year’s parade along the Champs-Elysees on July 14 will feature US troops to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the US entry into World War One.