Donald Trump’s war of words with Emmanuel Macron has escalated after France dismissed the US President’s latest jibes as ‘fake news’ in a meme on social media.
It comes after Trump asserted during his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland that he had pressured President Macron into hiking domestic drug prices, after the US leader threatened sweeping tariffs on French imports to America.
Elsewhere in the speech, Trump imitated Macron’s French accent, and mocked him for wearing aviator sunglasses the day before, which were intended to conceal an eye injury.
‘It is being claimed that President @Emmanuel Macron increased the price of medicines,’ the French presidency wrote on social media platform X.
‘He does not set their prices. They are regulated by the social security system and have, in fact, remained stable. Anyone who has set foot in a French pharmacy knows this.’
The Elysee used a GIF of Trump mouthing the words ‘fake news’ in front of a microphone, with the same words in writing underneath.
It was the latest salvo in a tense war of words between the two Nato allies, triggered by Trump’s now-abandoned threat to take control of Greenland and to impose tariffs on any country that stands in his way.
But in an astonishing climbdown following a meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, the US President declared that the two had agreed ‘the framework of a future deal’ on Greenland – easing transatlantic tensions that had been put under unprecedented strain.
‘It is being claimed that President @Emmanuel Macron increased the price of medicines,’ the French presidency wrote on social media platform X
Elsewhere in his speech in Davos, Trump imitated Macron’s French accent, and mocked him for wearing aviator sunglasses the day before, which were intended to conceal an eye injury
In his address to the WEF on Tuesday, Macron hit back at Trump, warning that ‘we’re shifting to a world without rules’ where ‘international law is trampled underfoot, and the only law that matters is that of the strongest’
Read More
Mark Rutte delivers reality check to Trump over claim Nato ‘wouldn’t come to America’s aid’
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump said in a speech at the WEF that he had threatened Macron with tariffs to cajole him into increasing drug prices in France.
‘I said, “Here’s the story, Emmanuel, the answer is, you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it fast. And if you don’t, I’m putting a 25 per cent tariff on everything that you sell into the United States, and a 100 per cent tariff on your wines and champagnes,”‘ Trump said.
‘(And Macron said) “No, no, Donald, I will do it, I will do it”. It took me on average three minutes a country, saying the same thing, “You will do it”,’ Trump said.
French officials said Macron, 48, had burst a blood vessel in his eye, which left him with an unsightly injury. He was wearing sunglasses during his speech at Davos on Tuesday.
‘I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses,’ Trump said. ‘What the hell happened?’
He later insisted he liked Macron, before adding: ‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’
The US President has also threatened to hit French wines and champagnes with 200 per cent tariffs in an apparent effort to persuade Macron to join the US leader’s Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts.
Macron had said ‘at this stage’ he was not planning on serving on Trump board, which is intended to create the second phase of the Gaza peace plan.
‘Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,’ Trump told reporters on Monday evening when asked about Macron’s rejection.
He then escalated his threat of a trade war with Europe.
‘What I’ll do is, if they feel hostile, I’ll put a 200 per cent tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,’ Trump said before boarding a flight to Washington. ‘But he doesn’t have to join.’
Later Monday night, Trump leaked a text message he received from Macron where the French leader explained some of his differences and similarities to Trump on policy.
‘My friend, we are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran,’ Macron wrote. ‘I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things.’
A text from French President Emmanuel Macron sent to Donald Trump
Trump had previously threatened to hit France with a 200 per cent tariff on champagne
Macron has taken a harder line than most European Union leaders over Trump’s Greenland threat, urging the bloc to activate its most potent trade tools against Washington and saying Europe would not give in to bullies.
‘The crazy thing is that we could find ourselves in a situation where we use the anti-coercion mechanism for the very first time against the United States,’ Macron said during his speech.
He was referring to the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), nicknamed the ‘trade bazooka’, an economic tool that would hit the US with £81 billion in tariffs.
He warned that ‘we’re shifting to a world without rules’ where ‘international law is trampled underfoot, and the only law that matters is that of the strongest’.
The French leader opened his speech by saying: ‘It’s time of peace, stability and predictability, yet we have approached instability and imbalance,’ adding that ‘conflict has become normalised’.
But while Macron did not directly address the US President, he said he prefers ‘respect to bullies’ and ‘rule of law to brutality’ following the American leader’s tariff threats.
The French government last year set up an account called @frenchresponse to expose false narratives and misinformation.
The account has become increasingly active in recent weeks, notably in challenging rhetoric from the Trump administration.
Just hours after Trump’s explosive speech at the WEF, Europe breathed a collective sigh of relief when he announced a major U-turn.
After a ‘very productive’ meeting with Rutte, he dropped the threat of tariffs on European countries who opposed his plan to purchase Greenland, and announced a ‘framework of a future deal’ on Greenland as well as ‘the entire Arctic Region’.
‘Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
It was a dramatic reversal shortly after he insisted he wanted to get the island ‘including right, title and ownership’.
Trump said ‘additional discussions’ on Greenland were being held concerning the Golden Dome missile defense program, a multilayered, $175 billion system that for the first time will put US weapons in space.
Trump offered few details, saying they were still being worked out.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement that security in the Arctic is a matter for all of Nato, and it is ‘good and natural’ that it be discussed between the US President and Nato secretary general Rutte.
It wasn’t just France which felt compelled to correct some of the comments Trump made during his extraordinary address in Davos.
Nato secretary general Rutte delivered a reality check to Trump following his speech, telling him that one Nato soldier died for every two Americans in Afghanistan after the US President doubted the Western alliance.
Trump had said ‘I’m not sure that they’d be there for us if we gave them the call’, as he tried to rally momentum for his now-ditched plan to acquire Greenland from Denmark.
‘I know them all very well. I’m not sure that they’d be there. I know we’d be there for them. I don’t know that they would be there for us,’ the US President said.
The claims, however, overlook the fact that Nato member countries suffered hundreds of deaths during the Afghanistan war, triggered after the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.
Britain alone lost 457 troops, with France, Germany, Italy and Denmark also suffering many deaths.
Rutte told Trump: ‘There’s one thing I heard you say yesterday and today. You were not absolutely sure Europeans would come to the rescue of the US if you will be attacked. Let me tell you, they will and they did in Afghanistan.’
The rebuttal came after Trump called Denmark – which had the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces in Afghanistan – ‘ungrateful’ for US protection during the Second World War.
‘For every two Americans who paid the ultimate price, there was one soldier from another Nato country who did not come back to his family – from the Netherlands, from Denmark and particularly from other countries,’ the Nato chief said.
