The fresh tweet came just a few days after US President Donald Trump dismissed his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron's idea of building a "true European army" as "insulting" and insisted that European states should first pay their fair share for NATO.
After returning from the Remembrance Day commemoration in Paris, where Donald Trump held a bilateral meeting with Emmanuel Macron and discussed European defence, the US President fired off yet another tweet criticizing his French counterpart's idea to build an EU army to protect the continent "with respect to China, Russia and even the United States":
Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two - How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2018
Over the weekend, the two leaders met at the Elysee Palace to discuss the issue of EU defence capabilities, with President Macron saying that Europe could bear a greater financial burden in terms of collective defence.
His American counterpart, in turn, stated that Washington wanted a "strong Europe" and was willing to help its European allies, but at the same time, he wanted it to be fair:
"We want a strong Europe, it's very important to us. We want to help Europe but it has to be fair. Right now the burden sharing has been largely on the United States," Trump lamented.
The meeting followed a somewhat angry tweet by President Trump, blasting Macron's idea of creating an EU army that would potentially protect the continent from Russia, China, and even the United States:
President Macron of France has just suggested that Europe build its own military in order to protect itself from the U.S., China and Russia. Very insulting, but perhaps Europe should first pay its fair share of NATO, which the U.S. subsidizes greatly!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2018
Donald Trump has on multiple occasions pressed NATO member-states to meet their annual defence spending obligations in the alliance, insisting on fair burden-sharing. During the NATO summit in Brussels in July, Trump demanded that members raise their expenditures to 4 percent of GDP — instead of the existing target of 2 percent.
