Foreign Leaders Criticized Trump. Now They’re Courting Him.

The Washington Post / Cat Zakrzewski

17:27 JST, December 8, 2024

PARIS – As flames engulfed Notre Dame cathedral more than five years ago, the French civil defense agency seemed to mock President Donald Trump, who had tweeted to suggest using “flying water tankers” to put out the blaze. The agency warned Trump that using aircraft to drop water on the centuries-old building “could lead to the collapse of the entire structure of the cathedral.”

That sort of unfriendliness has not survived Trump’s election victory last month.

The president-elect returned to Paris on Saturday not as a punchline but as a guest of honor for the reopening of the cathedral whose guardians had once had a laugh at his expense. Trump arrived at the Élysée Palace about 40 minutes late amid rain and blustering winds. He patted French President Emmanuel Macron on the back and shook hands with him on a red carpet before briefly posing for photos.

In a short appearance with reporters inside the Élysée Palace, Macron told Trump, “Mr. President, it’s a great honor for French people. We welcome you – five years later. … I remember the solidarity and your immediate action so welcome back again.”

Trump in turn emphasized the “great relationship” between France and the United States, praising the French as “talented” and “extremely energetic people.”

“We had a lot of success working together on defense and offense, too. And it certainly seems like the world is going a little crazy right now, and we’ll be talking about that,” he added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later joined Trump and Macron for an amicable meeting, as Zelensky seeks continued U.S. aid for his country’s war effort. Macron hosted Trump and Zelensky as many Western officials are concerned that Trump may limit aid to Ukraine or seek a deal with Russia to end the war that would force Kyiv to cede sovereign territory.

Foreign leaders, including Macron, who invited Trump to Notre Dame’s reopening, have spent much of the month since the election scrambling to curry favor with the once and future president, whose isolationist, “America First” agenda has left many leaders worried that he will reduce U.S. investment in defending global democracies.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last month after Trump threatened new tariffs against his country, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who is Dutch, made a trip to Trump’s Florida outpost last month to urge the president-elect to continue to support Ukraine.

“Foreign leaders are coming to the table to meet with President Trump because they know he will restore peace through strength and reclaim America’s dominance on the world stage,” said Taylor Rogers, a Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman.

Trump’s visit included a ceremony in the storied Notre Dame cathedral with about 50 other foreign heads of state and government. He shook hands with Prince William inside the cathedral, and he later visited him at the British ambassador’s residence in Paris. At the Élysée Palace, Trump was received with pomp and circumstance, as staff rolled out a red carpet ahead of his arrival and greeted him with a full guard of honor.

The warm exchange punctuated a hot-and-cold relationship between the returning U.S. president and the embattled French leader. Over the years, Macron has often rebuked Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Trump tore into Macron in a morning tweetstorm in 2018, after Macron delivered a speech on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I that was widely viewed as a criticism of Trump’s brand of nationalism. The next year, Trump complained that Macron’s remarks about NATO’s “brain death” following Trump’s broadsides against the organization were “very, very nasty” and “very disrespectful.”

But despite these disagreements, Macron has at other times been able to use a combination of flattery and male bravado to connect with Trump. During the photos on the red carpet Saturday, Trump and Macron’s handshake became a talking point on social media, as the men gripped raised hands in a pose reminiscent of an arm wrestling match.

By honoring the president-elect with an invitation to a spectacle celebrating a famous building, Macron appeared to have once again appealed to the interests of the longtime real estate tycoon, who is known for his appreciation of opulent architecture. The French press has described Trump’s attendance as a “diplomatic coup” for Macron, who is scrambling to respond to a no-confidence vote that triggered the collapse of the French government.

The stakes for global leaders’ outreach to Trump are higher than in his first term, as he enters office amid the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The Biden administration has been scrambling to provide more weapons to Kyiv and recently approved Ukraine’s use of long-range U.S. missiles inside Russia, amid concerns about the Kremlin’s advances on the battlefield and Trump’s potential reversal of U.S. policies on the war. Trump’s pick for Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, recently met with leaders in Qatar and Israel for talks about a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.

Ahead of the meeting between Trump, Macron and Zelensky, a Western official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters said such an event would be “very helpful indeed.”

“They talked on the phone after President Trump’s victory but a direct meeting would certainly be important so that they could exchange on the situation and prepare future steps after Mr. Trump’s inauguration,” the official said. Both Western diplomats and Ukrainian officials had hoped the meeting would take place in Paris, the Western official said.

Trump’s appearance in France and foreign leaders’ continued courting of him and his advisers indicate how rapidly his power has grown even before President Joe Biden leaves office. Macron and his wife, Brigitte, greeted first lady Jill Biden at the Notre Dame reopening service, which she attended with her daughter Ashley. But the president, who returned from a trip to Angola on Thursday, remained in Washington and had no public events on Saturday.