Macron sent message to Trump offering to host G7 meeting in Paris Thursday

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00:00For more on all of this, we can bring in our international affairs commentator, Douglas

00:03Herbert. Doug, is the bromance over between these two? First of all, what bromance? Bromance is sort

00:08of a label that that was applied by sort of the narrative in the press and the, you know,

00:13the headlines, this supposed bromance. It never really existed. It's true. You go back to February

00:182025, shortly after Donald Trump returned to the White House the previous month, and you had Emmanuel

00:24Macron meeting there in the Oval Office. And yeah, it looked like a love fest, one of these touchy

00:28feely, I'll use the word bromance as it was labeled at the time. For Donald Trump, the bromance is

00:35purely as deep as the other person's, that is the other person in that friendship's ability to do

00:43Trump's bidding, that is to do his will. It is not a friendship in the, you know, conventional sense

00:49of how you define a friendship of mutual respect, give and take a little bit, listening to each

00:55other a true earnest dialogue, of like I said, mutual respect. So all of the, the knee tapping, the back

01:03slapping, the hugging, the gripping of hands, all the touchy feely stuff, you know, the so called love fest

01:08means nothing that we saw. It means nothing as long, it only means something so long as Emmanuel Macron

01:15says and does nothing that in any way rubs Donald Trump the wrong way. So the flattery and cajoling

01:22works as long as all you do is flatter and cajole Donald Trump, and then hopefully get what you want

01:28out, out with him, out of him. The problem is that does not happen. It has not happened with Emmanuel

01:33Macron. Donald Trump's so-called friendship with Macron only went so far as Macron was seen as

01:39someone who, quote, liked Donald Trump. You know, I'll use the analogy. I was talking earlier this

01:44morning about J.D. Vance and how J.D. Vance initially compared Trump to Hitler. A lot of people

01:49said, well, how could Trump end up picking him as a vice president? Well, that's because he finally had a

01:55conversion, J.D. Vance, and he ended up saying that he agreed and liked Donald Trump and even

01:59admired him. And Donald Trump, in response, said, yeah, sure. He said some bad things about me in

02:04the past, presumably referring to the he's like Hitler comment. But he said, but then he met me

02:09and he fell in love. For Donald Trump, it's through the prism of that. Any friendship is based on a

02:14perception from Trump's side that people like him, that if they meet him, they can't help but be

02:19friendly with him. And that's what he encounters with a lot of people and no exception with Emmanuel Macron.

02:24Emmanuel Macron is now learning the hard way, although he is set on continuing to reach out

02:27and have diplomacy with Trump, is learning the hard way that there is no friendship with Donald

02:32Trump. By definition, you cannot be friends with him. You can be transactionally back slapping and

02:37knee tapping, but you cannot be really friends with him. So where does this leave France and the rest of

02:43Europe? Because they find themselves in a difficult position going up against the U.S. president who has

02:47his eyes on Greenland, which is technically EU territory. It leaves them in between literally that

02:53proverbial rock and hard place. It's not a tight position. It's an untenable position. Tight suggests

02:58that there's some way that you can negotiate with Donald Trump and sort of have him hear reason from

03:05the European perspective. It's simply not going to happen because Donald Trump's default is to have

03:10his bidding done. If it's not done, he will continue to proceed as he likes. Right now, we have heard the

03:18Europeans' signs that they're waking up, that they get it, that they have to collaborate right now

03:23in defense of Greenland's sovereignty and territorial integrity. They have to partner together to ensure

03:29Arctic security. They have to make it clear that its Greenland status is non-negotiable while trying.

03:35They're also this delicate balancing act, trying to show the United States that they're still on its

03:41side. They still consider the U.S. its friends. It's an extremely difficult balancing act because it's one in

03:46which Donald Trump and Trumpism is just not willing to engage. Donald Trump's ultimate goal is to have,

03:53to recreate, in essence, the world order in his own image. If you go along with that, so much the

03:59better. You can be his, quote, bromance friend. If you don't go along with that, get ready for an

04:03extremely rocky ride. The problem is right now for Europe is, you say, a tight spot. If they go along

04:10with Donald Trump right now, they basically reduce themselves to protectorate, to vassal status, showing what

04:16Donald Trump already thinks. Europe's weak and divided and has no power. If they don't go along with it, yeah,

04:21they might have some real tensions in that transatlantic relationship, but you could argue, perhaps, that doing

04:26something, hitting back, will end up putting them in a better position than if they do nothing and suffer the

04:31consequences of reduced credibility and status on the world stage. And we'll see how this plays out

04:36in Davos over the coming days. Thank you very much for that, Doug.

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