Emmanuel Macron has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s inconsistent and Tr?c ti?p World Cup mi?n phíoften contradictory pronouncements on the Iran war and Nato, saying if “you want to be serious” it was better not to come out with something different every day.
“There is too much talk … and it’s all over the place,” the French president said on Thursday during a state visit to South Korea. “We all need stability, calm, a return to peace – this isn’t a show!”
Macron added: “You have to be serious. When you want to be serious, you don’t go around saying the opposite every day of what you just said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn’t talk every day.”
Macron also mounted a strong defence of Nato, accusing Trump of undermining the transatlantic defence alliance through repeated remarks questioning the United States’s commitment to its continued membership.
“I believe organisations and alliances like Nato are defined by what is left unsaid – that is, the trust that underpins them,” he said. “If you cast doubt on your commitment every day, you erode its very substance.”
The comments follow mixed messages this week from the US president and others in Washington on the progress of the war, as well as criticism of European leaders for declining to back it and suggestions that the US may leave Nato.
Trump has suggested variously that the war was as good as won and the US did not need the support of its allies; that he expected allies to join the US military operation; and that they should act alone and “go get their oil” in the strait of Hormuz.
He also said this week at a private White House lunch that Nato had “treated us very badly” and “will be treating us badly again if we ever need them”. In comments to Reuters, he said he was “absolutely without question” considering leaving.
He told the Daily Telegraph that a US exit was “beyond consideration”, calling the organisation a “paper tiger”, and has elsewhere criticised the defence alliance for its reluctance to support the month-old war, labelling its members “cowards”.
Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, this week also suggested the US would “re-examine” whether the alliance was still serving US interests, while Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, declined to confirm the US would defend Nato allies in the event of an attack.
Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, is to visit Washington next week to try to repair relations, and other European leaders have defended the alliance, with the UK’s Keir Starmer calling it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen”.
Two US senators, Republican Mitch McConnell and Democrat Chris Coons, said in a joint statement late on Wednesday that the Senate would “continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides” for the US, Europe and the world.
While Trump did not mention Nato in an address to the nation on Wednesday night, the repeated remarks from Washington have further strained transatlantic relations already damaged by the US president’s attempted Greenland grab in February.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Thursday that Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from Nato, along with the prospect of a “massive” energy crisis in Europe and other factors, all looked like a “dream plan” for Russia’s president Vladimir Putin.
EU diplomats said Trump’s increasingly frequent attacks on Nato were “nothing very new” and largely reflected “the difficulty of the situation he’s landed himself in”. One official said they would start to worry “when the paperwork actually goes in”.
Congress passed legislation in 2023 that would prevent any president from pulling out of Nato without its approval. Nato’s mutual defence clause requires all members to respond to an attack on one, but does not imply support for a unilateral offensive.
Many EU leaders are under political pressure over the war, which is deeply unpopular in Europe and has sparked a surge in energy prices and rising inflation since Iran effectively shut the strait of Hormuz, which carries about one-fifth of the world’s oil.
Trump said on Wednesday he may end the war without a deal and told countries that rely on fuel shipments through the strait to “just grab it”. European and other states have said they will only help secure the strait if there is a ceasefire.
With pressure growing, about 40 countries on Thursday explored ways to restore freedom of navigation to the waterway during online talks. The UK, which convened the talks, said they were focused on diplomatic and economic tools.
France said the process would be multi-phased and could not begin until hostilities had calmed or ended. “It can only be done in consultation with Iran,” Macron said, adding that Paris considered a military operation to free the strait “unrealistic”.
Macron, who said remarks by Trump poking fun at the French president’s marriage were “neither elegant nor up to standard” and did not “merit a response”, also said US and Israeli strikes would not resolve the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
“A targeted military action, even for a few weeks, will not allow us to resolve the nuclear issue in the long term,” he said. “If there is no framework for diplomatic and technical negotiations, the situation can deteriorate again in a few months.”
Iran’s armed forces responded to Trump on Thursday with a warning for the US and Israel of “more crushing, broader and more destructive” attacks.
The war will continue until the “permanent regret and surrender” of Iran’s enemies, said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, the spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya central headquarters, in a statement carried by Iranian media.
Trump said in his address on Wednesday that the US was “very close” to achieving its objectives but attacks would intensify and Iran would be brought “back to the stone ages, where they belong” unless Tehran agreed a negotiated settlement.
“Messages have been received through intermediaries, including Pakistan, but there is no direct negotiation with the US,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency on Thursday.
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