President Donald Trump used the stage at the world’s foremost economic get-together to mock a key ally over an eye condition that requires the use of sunglasses.
French President Emmanuel Macron emerged at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this week wearing eye-catching blue reflective aviators due to a sub-conjunctival haemorrhage, or, more plainly, a broken blood vessel in his eye, according to reports in France.
He wore them as he blasted Trump in a speech over the 79-year-old’s continued pursuit of Greenland, which is a part of Denmark, a NATO ally. “We do prefer respect to bullies. We do prefer science to politicism. And we prefer the rule of law to brutality,” he said during his missive against POTUS.
The choice of eyewear stirred chatter online and obviously caught Trump’s attention. The U.S. president took to the stage in Davos on Wednesday and embarked on a meandering, sometimes hard-to-discern, campaign-style speech where he swiped at allies, plugged his Greenland campaign, and generally filled the room with word salad.
Macron’s missive, too, was clearly still on his mind. On the subject of negotiating drug prices with E.U. nations, Trump deviated from his points and joked, “I called up Emmanuel Macron… I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?”
There was scattered laughter in the conference hall.
“But I watched him sort of be tough. But he was at $10 for a pill,” Trump said, before going off on a tangent about big pharmaceutical companies.
He began moaning about the price of drugs in the U.S. compared to in Europe. He then returned to Macron, whom he said he is actually fond of. “I like him. Hard to believe, isn’t it?” he said.
Trump added that he had asked Macron to increase the price of prescription drugs in France to bring them closer to U.S. rates. He then rolled out his best French accent to impersonate the head of state’s refusal. “No, no, no, Donald. I will not do that,” Trump said.
He said that Macron declined. “He said, ‘No, no, no, you’re asking me to double,’” Trump explained, in a much better, though still weak, effort at a French accent.
“I said, ‘Emmanuel, you’ve been taking advantage of the United States for 30 years with prescription drugs. You really should do it. And you will do it, I have no doubt,’” he added.
Trump then produced his box office French accent, raising his voice and adding, à la Macron, “No, no, no, I will not do it!”
He then said he threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on French goods entering the U.S., as well as a 100 percent levy on wines and champagnes, if Macron didn’t play ball. Macron, he said, then acquiesced.
“No, no, Donald, I will do it,” Trump said, with barely-there Gallic flair. “I weel do eet.”
After his epic recounting of his bullish approach to trade, Trump boasted that it took him “on average three minutes” to get E.U. holdouts to fold. “They all said, ‘No, no, no, we will not do it. You’re asking us to double the price!’ I said, ‘That’s right, because you’ve been screwing us for 30 years!’”
Last week, Macron appeared at a military event in France with a red eye. At one point donned a similar pair of sunglasses and, while addressing troops, he downplayed his condition.
He said it was “totally benign” and “completely insignificant.
Macron joked that it is “l’oeil du tigre” or the “eye of the tiger,” a reference to Survivor’s song, which was used in the 1982 boxing movie Rocky III.
“For those who get the reference, it’s a sign of determination,” he said.
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