If French President Emmanuel Macron wields his considerable charm like a magic potion, no one seems to have fallen so completely and utterly under his spell as the most powerful man in the world. U.S. President Donald Trump, it has become clear this week, is infatuated with the 40-year-old French leader.
“They’re all saying what a great relationship we have and they’re actually correct. It’s not fake news. Finally, it’s not fake news,” the U.S. President gushed on Tuesday as he welcomed Mr. Macron to the White House for the first state visit of his presidency.
The 71-year-old Mr. Trump then proceeded to delicately brush what he diagnosed as a speck of dandruff off Mr. Macron’s lapel, as a doting spouse or parent might do. “We have to make him perfect. He is perfect.”
The two leaders hugged, kissed and held hands in an eyebrow-raising public display of affectation the world is unlikely to soon forget, no matter how much it might want to.
It may seem to be an unlikely May-September bromance between two leaders separated by three decades in age and several galaxies in personality and politics, especially given the disdain Mr. Trump showed for France during his campaign and the resolutely pro-European and anti-populist agenda Mr. Macron is pushing at home and abroad. But since Mr. Trump judges everyone by their looks and star power – and not their policies or politics – it is not surprising he would take to this young French sensation.
It began the night of Mr. Macron’s win last May, when he strode to the podium – the Louvre illuminated behind him, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy playing loudly – to deliver his speech. “Magnificent images. Bravo!” Mr. Trump is said to have told Mr. Macron on their first phone call.
Neither of Mr. Trump’s other go-to Group of Seven interlocutors – Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Theresa May – suffer fools easily. While Ms. May tried, she quickly gave up. The political risk of courting Mr. Trump, so disdained in Britain he had to cancel a visit there, was too great for her, anyway.
Ms. Merkel still talks to him when duty calls – as it will on Friday, when she will visit Mr. Trump to press him to exempt Europe from tariffs on aluminum and steel. But it is the part of her job she dislikes the most, which is a liability as Germans contemplate their country’s declining influence.
The French President’s assiduous efforts to court and influence his U.S. counterpart testify to the ambition he nourishes for himself and his country.
For several nights before this month’s air strikes by the United States, France and Britain on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical-weapons targets, Mr. Macron never went to bed before speaking to Mr. Trump. The French leader took credit for the scope and timing of the strike, tempering Mr. Trump’s initial hawkishness. He also took responsibility for dealing with the blowback from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has backed Mr. al-Assad.
Yes, Mr. Macron has also turned his charm on the Russian strongman, whom he treated to a state visit at Versailles after his election last year. He is now perhaps the only world leader on a first-name basis with Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin. Both men seem to like and admire Mr. Macron so much that neither gets upset when he criticizes them in public. How many people can say that?
The French are America’s greatest secret admirers, and, for most, Mr. Trump simply embodies America. They might turn their noses up at the fake tans and supersized servings, but they deeply envy the brash informality and innovative spirit of Americans. Perhaps no Frenchman since Alexis de Tocqueville has dared to express this admiration as enthusiastically as Mr. Macron.
The French President is a far more strategic thinker and leader than Mr. Trump. There is a method to his apparent affection for Mr. Trump, while the latter’s clinginess toward Mr. Macron just speaks to his own impulsiveness. Mr. Macron has him where he wants and needs him.
While the results might be slow to materialize – on preserving the Iran nuclear deal, on getting Mr. Trump to keep U.S. troops in Syria, on taming U.S. protectionism and on keeping the Paris climate accord on track – you can’t say Mr. Macron doesn’t aim big. He has an agenda as long as the Napoleonic Code. He needs Mr. Trump – just not in the same way Mr. Trump seems to need him.
Konrad Yakabuski