Macron & Trump: Is it sharing of roles or a start of independence?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

Those who listened to the words of the presidents and the leaders who took part in the New York platform were able to distinguish strongly between the speech of the US President Donald Trump and the speech of the French President Emmanuel Macron, while the subsequent declarations of the two presidents differed regarding the issues that they did not include. As a conclusion, it seemed for many people that Trump is a man of hatred, escalation, threatening of wars and the exit of understandings, even the scrutiny in his words led to the fact that he is helpless to translate these threats, so his words remained a hostile aggressive without a clear threat but only accompanied by an equation of in case of exposing to danger, while Macron emerged as a man of settlements who calls for a political dialogue about the Korean crisis, he warns of tampering with the understanding about the nuclear program of Iran in a way that transcended the distinction from Trump but to respond to him practically, till the speech of Macron seemed dedicated to respond to Trump.

Macron has made a second step in making the settlements by his talking about the call and the work within a contact group about Syria, focusing on the need to cooperate with Russia in resolving all crises, he did not hide the keenness on the progress of the relationships with Iran or the partnership with Turkey in confronting the referendum on the secession which the presidency of Kurdistan region in Iraq has called for. This has put Macron’s speech within French strategic, diplomatic integrated developing range that did not ignore the Palestinian cause and the endeavors of the solution on the basis of the two states as Trump did, and it did not stop at the traditional speech of France and America towards Syria and its President, but it added that the future of the Syrian presidency is determined by the Syrians themselves, and that the Syrian President is fighting the terrorists not the French people.

According to some observers of the French politics, it is impossible to separate France from American in the foreign policy, thus it can be explained that the difference and the disparity are due to the difference of circumstances and privacies under one ceiling. The escalating language of Trump serves him in his critical internal situation by presenting the image of the strong president who is keen on showing it like that, but he does not have any roadmap to go on in the escalation, this was clear in the content of his speech, he knows as its administration that the settlements are inevitable, so nothing prevents to benefit France from the speech of settlements, and which its interests are related originally with the disputed region or to be a way for understandings even with Russia. Furthermore, Ukrainian cause is a common French-German-American concern. So this French role grants Washington better negotiating opportunities since it is a part not a mediator either with Russia or Iran or Korea, it does not matter if France is going to improve the relationship with Turkey and to draw commons with it even under a Turkish cooperation with Russia and Iran as long as there are no eventual settlements without America.

Another approach is imposing itself strongly; its basis is that the matters are not like that among the countries, no matter how far the alliance among them reaches. France expresses its interests and its speech. Washington is without options, it is restricted to a rhetoric that is unable to present alternatives. So this means that Paris has drawn its policies taking into consideration the importance of America and its political loss, it bets on being attracted to the tracks of settlements which it suggested, it invests on doing the variables in bringing Washington closer to these tracks, that can face-saving it, but France does not have the legitimacy or the ability to present it, this is closer to reality than sharing the roles. but it reflects the size of the vacancy which is represented by the decline political status of America as the vacancy which is represented by the decline of its military status, it is a vacancy that is created by Russia and France aims to share under US consent, due to the need and the necessity, so it is not a sharing of roles. Maybe the American retreat is a source for new margins for independence in the camp of the allies that affects France, as the Turkish movement which we witness towards Russia and Iran, especially when it becomes difficult to distinguish between Trump’s rhetoric and Netanyahu’s, as it is difficult to distinguish between their inability.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,