Macron Hits Back, Questions Trump: How Can Turkey Buy Russian S-400s & Remain In NATO?

Macron hits back after earlier in the day Trump took his NATO "brain death" comments to task saying they were "very nasty" remarks, and the French president also took a swipe at Turkey, saying "technically it is not possible" to purchase the S-400 anti-air defense system from the Russians and be a NATO member

Sitting next to Trump and fielding questions from reporters outlining their respective views of the state of the NATO alliance, it was clear the recent 'bromance' is no longer going strong. 


How is it possible to be a member of the alliance - to work with our office, to buy our materials, to be integrated - and to buy the S-400 from Russia? Technically it is not possible...


Macron said to Trump, who in the past has claimed 100% defeat of ISIS: "The number one priority, because it's not yet finished, is to get rid of ISIS...It's not yet done. I'm sorry to say that."


“Let’s be serious,” Macron responded.



As Bloomberg summarized of the testy exchange:


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With his allies up in arms over his latest tariff threats directed at France, President Trump landed in London early Tuesday, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, for a two-day summit marking the 70th anniversary of the military alliance's birth. Trump is notorious for blaming America's NATO partners for not paying their fair share when it comes to financing the military alliance.

Sitting alongside NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg at Winfield House in London, Trump delivered a rambling address that marked the beginning of the summit, bragging about his progress with China, and claiming that the US is doing 'very well' when it comes to the still-unsigned 'Phase One' trade agreement.

There was talk of arms control progress, with Trump insisting that "Russia wants to do something badly and so do we."



The problem is that Macron apparently told The Economist Magazine that Nato was experiencing "brain death," and warned that members of the alliance could no longer rely on the US.

Unsurprisingly, Trump took umbrage at this, and dedicated a few minutes of his opening press conference to trashing Macron, accusing him of being "very, very nasty" and that it was "very insulting" for the French president to label Nato "brain dead."

Watch a clip of Trump's remarks below:

Trump added that relations between the US and European Nato members were not causing any divide, except with France. He could even envision France 'breaking' away from the military alliance.


Returning to the tariffs once more, Trump slammed France for trying to raise money via a "digital tax" levy on US tech giants like Facebook and Google.

"They are starting to tax other people’s products, so we are going to tax them," Trump said

He also took a swipe a France's economy, with its high unemployment rate, claiming that the country was “not doing well economically at all." There's some truth to that: The Q3 unemployment rate climbed o 8.6%.

