U.S. President Donald Trump's latest disastrous trip to Europe is over, but his feud with French President Emmanuel Macron over the latter's suggestion of a European army is not. Far from simply being a tiff between two strong-willed leaders, the dispute demonstrates in microcosm just how dark and precarious the current moment in global politics is.
Trump's behavior on the international stage is so boorish that it often brings to mind Winston Churchill's quip about an earlier American statesman being "the only bull I know who carries his own china shop around with him." Yet it was Macron who precipitated the current spat with comments before Trump's visit to Paris as he marked the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
Contrary to what was widely reported, Macron did not quite say that the European Union needed a stronger military to protect itself from America. (He said that the EU faced cyberthreats that originated in a variety of locations, including Russia, China and the United States.) But he did claim that Europe was the "principal victim" of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, presumably because Moscow's response may be to increase the number of missiles putting European targets at risk.
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