France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Steinmeier slam Trump’s US for ‘turning away from allies’

The French President, Emmanuel Macron on Thursday slammed the US’ foreign policy under President Donald Trump saying that it is ” turning away from its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was promoting until recently.”

Speaking at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Macron’s comments came days after Trump launched large-scale military strikes on Venezuelan capital Caracas, capturing the country’s President Nicolás Maduro. He is currently being held at a federal detention facility in New York and is expected to appear in court over several charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy.

“The US is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from the international rules that it was until recently promoting,” Macron told France’s diplomatic corps at the Élysée Palace on Thursday, reported The Guardian.

“Multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,” the French president added. “We are living in a world of great powers, with a real temptation to divide up the world.”

He said France “rejects the new colonialism and new imperialism – but also vassalage and defeatism. What we have achieved for France and in Europe is a step in the right direction. Greater strategic autonomy, less dependence on the US and China”.

The comments also follow Trump’s renewed call for the US to seize Greenland, a Danish territory – a move that would threaten European security and could mean the end of Nato.

Speaking at a symposium in Berlin to mark his 70th birthday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also strongly criticised US policy under Trump, urging the world not to let the world order disintegrate into a “den of robbers” where the unscrupulous take what they want.

“There is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order,” Steinmeier said in remarks at a symposium late on Wednesday.

“It is about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of a few great powers,” he said, reported Reuters.

He underlined the importance of revising the security policy as a consequence. “We must not be weak,” he said, adding that Germany could only play a role “if we are taken seriously, also militarily”, so this was “the goal we have to achieve”.