We won’t, either. We will not forget, Mr. Trump, the way you called us “cowards” and threatened to hold it against us that we refused to go to war by your side.
We will not forget it because the fury and rudeness to which you gave in there speak all too clearly of what we are in your eyes.
To you, we are not allies but auxiliaries.
One consults with one’s allies. One at least seeks their counsel. One at the very least warns them of decisions that will have serious consequences for them, but you presented us with a fait accompli. In hours’ time, we Europeans had to come to the aid of Cyprus, a member state of the Union. We, the French, had to organize on the spot the defense of those Gulf countries with which we have security agreements. Our economies soon had to suffer from soaring oil prices, yet you only remembered our existence when faced with your own difficulties.
Because you had not anticipated that the Iranian regime might block the Strait of Hormuz, it suddenly fell to us in Europe to go and reopen it. How? With what division of labor? To what ultimate end? You said nothing about it, and you likely knew nothing about it. It was an order, period, with no question of political consultation or even a meeting of military commands. We were supposed to obey, but Europe is not a regiment that can be summoned at a whistle.
Our response was therefore “no,” a foundational “no” because all Europeans dared to utter it—even the most Atlanticist among us, even those who had belonged to the USSR and share a border with Russia—a spectacular “no” because the Union unanimously distanced itself from Washington, an unprecedented event, without the earth splitting open.
“I will not forget,” you told us, with a heavy implication regarding the future of the Atlantic Alliance, but you would do well to remember that even the United States needs allies, that you have just experienced this, and that allies must be treated as equals and not as vassals. Think about it, for where would this temptation to withdraw from the Alliance—which has bound us, Americans and Europeans, for so long—lead you?
Do not think, not even in your wildest dreams, that you could then dismantle the European Union and divide Europe, between you and your friend Putin, into zones of American and Russian influence. Look at what has just happened. Recall the determination with which we forced you to back down when you sought to annex Greenland.
The end of NATO, sir, would only accelerate the establishment of a European defense and the emergence of a political Europe—that balancing power this century needs to escape the Sino-American standoff.
We have set about this task. It is underway, but what we now seek to achieve within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance—by gradually transforming it into an alliance of equals between Europe and America—we would then have to do alone, outside the NATO that you would have destroyed.
That is not our wish. On the contrary, we all wish to strengthen our alliance, but if you were to choose isolation, have no doubt that we know how to manage without you. Russian pressure would force us to do so. In Asia as elsewhere, we would quickly find new allies among those whom you have already made so skeptical of America—just look at the coalitions we are forming for postwar Ukraine and the postwar Middle East. These are the alliances and the security of tomorrow, for while you destroy, we build.
