When President Trump threatened President Emmanuel Macron of France on Monday with tariffs and dismissed him as irrelevant, it was the latest flare-up in a topsy-turvy relationship that has blown hot and cold for years.
Since first taking power within months of each other in 2017, the two have had frequent disagreements — exacerbated, from Mr. Trump’s side, by insults, threats and public derision. Generally, Mr. Macron managed to temper those arguments, and Mr. Trump’s most impulsive moves, through moments of friendship and expressions of admiration.
Now, Mr. Trump’s threats to impose new tariffs on Champagne and other French exports have raised questions about whether that approach has finally run out of road. As Mr. Trump threatens to invade Greenland, the territory of a NATO ally, it is unclear whether Mr. Macron’s tactic of charming him will continue to defuse their biggest disagreements.
“We have to stop with the charm,” Philippe Aghion, a French economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize last year, told the French television station BFM from Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. “The president of the republic put too much belief in charm, thinking it would work. No. That doesn’t pay off.” He called on European leaders to “do whatever it takes” to oppose Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland.
On paper, Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump always seemed destined to clash, given their opposing views on trade, immigration and climate change.
Yet they continued to communicate. They share at least two common traits: Both really like to talk, and both have built foreign policies underpinned by direct, personal relationships with other leaders.
During Mr. Trump’s first presidential visit to Paris in 2017, the two leaders held hands, kissed cheeks and lavished praise on one another. A year later, when Mr. Macron made a state visit to the White House, Mr. Trump gingerly brushed his shoulder and announced, “I like him a lot.”
The next year, however, he took Mr. Macron to task for his criticism of Mr. Trump’s leadership of NATO, calling them “very insulting” and “very, very nasty.”
Mr. Macron held his ground. “My statement created some reactions,” he said. “I do stand by it.”
Over the years, Mr. Macron’s strategy in dealing with Mr. Trump’s emotional outbursts and fickle positions has been to remain friendly but firm, while pushing for stronger European independence and defending Europe’s sovereignty.
Since Mr. Trump’s second, more tumultuous term began, Mr. Macron has doubled down on that strategy, even as Mr. Trump has increased his threats and personal derision, interlaced with the odd expression of affection.
Last June, when Mr. Macron said Mr. Trump had left a G7 summit early to work on an Iran-Israel cease-fire, the American president lashed out on social media, saying, “Whether purposely or not, Emmanuel always gets it wrong.”
When Mr. Macron was working in July on an campaign to recognize Palestinian statehood at a United Nations summit, and to bring other countries onboard, Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington that “what he says doesn’t matter.”
“He’s a good guy, I like him, but that statement doesn’t carry weight,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Macron.
Still, French diplomats have said that the two men speak on the phone regularly, as often as every other day.
Their familiarity was on display in September, when Mr. Macron was in New York for the United Nations summit. One night, leaving the session, he and his team got caught in a motorcade. After Mr. Macron couldn’t convince a police officer to let him through, he pulled out his phone and called Mr. Trump. The president answered.
“Guess what?” Mr. Macron told him, chuckling. “I am waiting the street because everything is frozen for you.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump confirmed — perhaps unwittingly — the two men’s constant, if conflicted, relationship by posting private text exchanges with Mr. Macron on Truth Social. The French president used them to celebrate their alignment on Syria and Iran, but he also wrote: “I don’t understand what you are doing in Greenland.”
Then he invited Mr. Trump to Paris, for a meal and a meeting with other European leaders.
“Let us have a dinner together in Paris together on Thursday before you go back,” he wrote.
Ana Castelain contributed reporting from Paris.
Catherine Porter is an international reporter for The Times, covering France. She is based in Paris.
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