Trump on Macron: “Sometimes he’ll say things that he shouldn’t say”

There seems to be a lack of unity in NATO as French President Emmanuel Macron says some harsh words about the organization, and some countries have disagreements on important subjects.

What’s Going On With NATO?

French leader Macron had some tough words for NATO, calling the alliance “brain dead” and bringing up the recent US decision of pulling forces out of northern Syria, which was not brought up to NATO by the US, as well as NATO members no longer cooperating on important issues.

This further strains the relationship and gives a rise to tensions between the US and France, alongside recent proposal of introducing tariffs on $2.4 billion in French goods over recent taxes by France on tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Trump, in response to Macron’s words about the organization, said:

“Sometimes he’ll say things that he shouldn’t say. Sometimes I think he does things that are counterproductive for his own country.”

“It is a very, very nasty statement. I think they have a very high unemployment rate in France. France is not doing well economically at all. … It is a very tough statement to make when you have such difficulty in France when you look at what is going on. They have had a rough year. You just can’t go around making statements like that about NATO. It is very disrespectful,” President Trump added.

Furthermore, Trump addressed military funding, saying that “a lot of countries haven’t paid,” and briefly commenting on the fact that the requirement to spend 2% of GDP on national defense budgets “really should be 4.”

Another problem seems to be Turkey and Erdogan, who responded to Macron’s statement by lashing out at the French leader, instead calling him “brain dead” and seeking to shift the focus towards terrorism, and a specific group inside the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG, that Turkey views as terrorists, but NATO does not.

“If our friends at NATO don’t recognise as terrorist organisations those we consider terrorist organisations… we will stand against any step that will be taken there,” Erdogan said, disapproving of a defense plan for Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia should Russia attack.