Former US president Donald Trump accused French President Emmanuel Macron of pandering to China’s leader Xi Jinping during his recent closely watched visit to Beijing.
Trump, who seeks to regain the White House in 2024, forged an adversarial relationship with China during his presidency even as he called Xi his “very good friend.”
In a television interview, Trump derided US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy as having emboldened Russia, North Korea and China and sidelined the United States as a world leader – criticism that was often leveled at his own administration.
“You got this crazy world is blowing up and the United States has absolutely no say. And Macron, who’s a friend of mine, is over with China kissing his a**,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News late on Tuesday.
At the end of his visit last week, Macron called on the European Union to reduce its dependence on the United States and cautioned against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan driven by an “American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and French President Emmanuel Macron look on at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing, China, April 6, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/GONZALO FUENTES)Macron makes no apology for China interview
Emmanuel Macron makes no apology for comments he made in an interview he gave in China, a senior French diplomat told reporters on Wednesday.
The interview, with news outlet Politico and French daily Les Echos, prompted a backlash in Europe and the United States.
The substance of what Macron said, which focused on his pet project of European strategic autonomy, was clear, and his position on Taiwan and China has not changed, the diplomat added.
Trump’s foreign policy as US president
As president, Trump upended some tenets of America’s post-World War II foreign policy by questioning the NATO alliance, alienating European partners and indulging autocrats.
Trump himself was accused of pandering to world leaders, autocrats in particular, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un.
He praised Putin and was famously accused by his 2016 Democratic presidential opponent Hillary Clinton of being “Putin’s puppet.” He held a summit with Kim in 2018 and declared at a rally with supporters that “we fell in love” after exchanging letters.