Macron’s Notre Dame invitation shows that power is quickly flowing from Biden to Trump

CNN
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There will be a strong sense of déjà vu as French President Emmanuel Macron ramps up the adulation for Donald Trump in Paris this weekend.

Few foreign leaders did more to woo Trump when he was the 45th president. In fact, Macron treated him with such deference at a Bastille Day parade on the Champs-Élysées that Trump came home wanting a military parade of his own – on July 4th.

As Trump prepares to become the 47th president, Macron has outdone himself by inviting Trump to the most lauded opening of the year – the unveiling of the newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral five years after a devastating fire.

Putting Trump at the center of the star-studded VIP event that will mark his grand return to the world stage says it all about the power that is quickly flowing back to the president-elect six weeks before the start of his second term.

Trump isn’t waiting until January to roll out his new foreign policy – he’s already threatened a trade war with Canada and Mexico and shown who’s boss when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rushed to Florida last week to appease him. And on Monday, he warned that there would be “HELL” in the Middle East if Hamas did not release hostages in Gaza before Inauguration Day.

Trump’s starring role in Paris will also provide a sharp contrast to Joe Biden’s increasingly ignominious long farewell. The president came under intense criticism even within his own party on Monday after he pardoned his son Hunter, undermining a core tenet of his time in office – that everyone is equal before the law.

“He didn’t have to say to the American public, ‘I’m not going to do this,’ and he did … and when you make a promise, you have to keep it,” Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine told CNN’s Manu Raju . Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney added: “It was a terrible decision and it just broke my heart.”

The announcement of Trump’s trip to Paris came as Biden landed in Angola for an official presidential visit that is sure to contain far more substance than Trump’s trip. The president wants to highlight U.S. commitment to sub-Saharan Africa in the face of China’s investment-driven regional power play. Trump never made it to Africa as president and seemed more interested in insulting the continent than helping it. Biden’s visit will also showcase one of the most successful U.S. global policies in decades – the massive program to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa, which faces an uncertain future if Trump returns to the White House.

But the president-elect’s far more visible trip to the City of Light will show that he is once again the American that foreign leaders want to court as Biden fades further from the international stage.

Perhaps most significantly, Trump’s trip will highlight the dilemma facing every world leader: how to deal with a new American president who is sure to be more aggressive and moody on the world stage than he is in his turbulent first term – and who often prefers the company of tyrants to allies.

The president-elect is happy to return to the international spotlight after news of Macron’s invitation broke on Monday. “President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring that Notre Dame is restored to its full glory and even more so. It will be a very special day for everyone!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The trip promises everything the president-elect values ​​most. A chance to be in the spotlight; the admiration of being a guest of honor; and the fanfare of being part of a unique spectacle that will attract millions of gazes around the world.

It’s also the kind of flashy move Macron is known for – but sometimes he fails. The French president’s impulsive gesture earlier this year to call early parliamentary elections backfired spectacularly, plunging the country into a government crisis.

Macron’s invitation is the latest step in the never-ending battle between European powers to be Washington’s main mediator across the Atlantic. Macron has long sought to position France as the dominant European power – particularly since the resignation of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who launched her memoirs in Washington on Monday night, alongside former President Barack Obama, who urged her to embrace the West in 2016 save trump.

Trump’s second coming has sparked a similar sense of crisis among Western powers, who fear he will abandon Ukraine to please his friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as expectations grow that the president-elect will launch massive tariffs on the European Union will threaten. There are also fears that Trump will split NATO in his second term, after saying on the campaign trail that he would tell Russia that it can “do whatever the hell” with alliance members that don’t meet minimum defense spending guidelines they want.”

By using the power of symbolism and pulling off the coup of a first foreign visit before Trump returns to office, Macron appears to be giving his rivals a leg up. There is little competition from Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz appears destined to follow Biden into the political wilderness soon after his ruling coalition collapsed and new elections are scheduled for February. New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stronger but faces a balancing act as Trump is deeply unpopular in his ruling Labor Party. And Britain lacks European influence after leaving the EU in a populist outburst that delighted Trump and heralded his victory in 2016. In a major foreign policy speech on Monday night, Starmer rejected the idea that the United Kingdom must choose between its friendships with the United States and Europe – a choice that some observers may force Trump to make. He also recalled his meeting with Trump in September, weeks before the US election. “When President Trump kindly invited me to dinner at Trump Tower, I told him that in the coming years we will invest more than ever in this transatlantic bond with our American friends,” Starmer said.

Even Macron, who was extremely unpopular well into his second term, is no longer the force he once was. His invitation to Trump is full of irony, as the far-right, pro-Trump National Rally Party is threatening to overthrow Prime Minister Michel Barnier, which would further weaken the president and cause more unrest. There are growing signs that Macron’s legacy could end up mirroring Biden’s – as a president forced to hand over power to nationalist, populist forces, he defined his government as a fight against him. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, whose anti-immigrant ideology is similar to Trump’s, may have her best chance yet to pass France’s two-tier presidential election system and come to power in 2027.

Macron’s bold new overture to Trump is likely to spark a torrent of mutual praise. But if history is anything to go by, it won’t last.

The first time, the Macrons and the Trumps dined at the Michelin-starred Jules Verne restaurant at the Eiffel Tower, whispered to each other at the Bastille Day parade, and then kissed and held hands at the White House. In the Oval Office in April 2018, Trump said, “We have to make him perfect, he is perfect,” as he brushed flakes off the French president’s shoulder. “Emmanuel will go down in history as one of your great presidents,” Trump told the French people.

However, the bromance didn’t last as Trump’s hostility towards Europe got in the way. Things really went off the rails during a visit by the U.S. leader to France later in 2018. Trump responded poorly to Macron’s push for a European army – ironically a partial response to the US leader’s frequent complaints about the need for American taxpayers to fund the continent’s defense. Trump called the idea “very offensive,” later mocked Macron’s “very low approval rating in France, 26%” and tweeted his support for his nationalist opponents.

While Trump appears ready to try again, Macron – who, like Biden, portrays himself as a protector of democracy and a bulwark against far-right nationalism – is far from the president-elect’s most popular European leader. That honor goes to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a frequent guest at Mar-a-Lago, whose plan to undermine democracy, restrict press freedom and politicize the judiciary is far more to Trump’s liking. “Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong,” Trump said during a rally in New Hampshire during his primary campaign in January. “It’s good to have a strong man at the head of a country.”

Still, both Macron and Trump place great value on relations between foreign leaders – so they may be able to rekindle the spark where it all began.

Trump will arrive in Paris shortly after naming Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, as the next U.S. ambassador to France. On the one hand, this choice could be seen by some as an insult to America’s longest diplomatic friendship since Kushner was convicted of tax evasion and witness retaliation and pardoned by Trump. But the French have long since perfected the art of diplomatic discretion, and in some ways Kushner’s choice could be seen as a compliment – he is Trump’s family, after all – and therefore has their ear.

Kushner’s appointment could also be a chance for Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, who now live in Florida, far from their former haunts in Manhattan, where the Trump name became anathema, to re-enter high society, at its most glittering diplomatic level Round the world, bid to elite liberal chattering classes.

This story has been updated with additional details.