What the columnists said

Trump spars with allies on European trip

The “crumbling” of America’s alliance with Europe couldn’t have been any clearer in Paris, said Robin Wright in NewYorker.com. As European leaders marched together in the rain toward the Arc de Triomphe on Armistice Day, Trump chose “the dry comfort of his limousine.” Russian President Vladimir Putin was “the only leader that the president seemed to connect with.” Putin also arrived at the ceremony alone, and “gave Trump a thumbs-up.”

Trump showed “contempt” for America’s service members by skipping the memorial at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, said Max Boot in The Washington Post. Instead, he holed up at the U.S. ambassador’s residence. This is par for the course. “He still has not visited U.S. troops deployed to a war zone,” and is now using troops as “political props” at the Mexican border. That’s not to say he didn’t sacrifice anything by skipping the ceremony. “Odds are that his room didn’t have Fox News.”

Macron “chose an odd occasion” to lecture an American president, said Steve Cortes in RealClearPolitics.com. It was American nationalism that “animated our mighty republic” to save Europe—not once, but twice. Religious liberty, pluralism, freeenterprise economics, “respect for our Constitution, and reverence for our great flag” define America’s “enlightened” nationalism. Conflating it with Nazi ethno-fascism misses the mark. When such ideals were endangered in Europe, we demonstrated our “historic commitment” to defending them by fighting overseas.