French agriculture minister Didier Guillaume has described US President Donald Trump's threat to increase tariffs on French wine imports in retaliation to France's 'foolishness' in deciding to tax sales of digital retail and commercial activities by tech companies, notably US giants like Amazone and Apple, as being 'completely moronic' and 'absurd'.
In a vitriolic message posted on Twitter, US President Donald Trump slammed a new tax to be levied by France on sales in the country by multinational digital tech firms like Google and Apple, announcing he will take "substantial reciprocal action on Macron's foolishness" and hinting this would be a raising of tariffs on French wine imports.
The Chinese president Xi Jinping, whose country is embroiled in a trade war with the United States, has threatened an embargo on Chinese exports of what are called rare earths. These metallic elements have become essential raw materials both for the technological transition to greener energy and in the digital world. And China has a near-monopoly on them. Mediapart's Martine Orange spoke about the issue with French expert Guillaume Pitron, author of a recent book on the growing global battle over these crucial elements.
Carole Ghosn, wife of Carlos Ghosn who was arrested in Japan last November on accusations of financial misconduct, has appealed to US President Donald Trump to help end his continued detention in Tokyo by lobbying the Japanese prime minister at the forthcoming G20 summit.
In what might be perceived by some as a reflection of increasing tensions between US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, a young oak tree presented as a gift by the French president during an official visit to the US last year, and which was symbolically planted in the White House gardens by the two leaders before being placed in obligatory quarantine, has died.
US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, elected to the House of Representatives last November, has since become a focal target for President Donald Trump and many among of the American Right. Arriving in the country as a child with her refugee family from Somalia, obtaining US nationality at the age of 17, she has engaged a political career as an outspoken, hijab-wearing Muslim politician who espouses radical-left policies. She also denounces American support of the Israeli government, and her controversial comments on that subject and the place of Muslims in US society have prompted death threats and accusations of anti-Semitism. Just what does Ilham Omar really represent, and what is behind the virulent campaign by Trump and his allies over recent months to make her a political pariah? Mediapart’s US correspondent Mathieu Magnaudeix reports.
Following revelations of previously unseen footage of US President Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon taking part in discussions in London with France's far-right Rassemblement National party, broadcast by a French TV current affairs programme and during which he was invited and accepted to discuss with the party's sympathisers from among France's high-ranking civil servants, has prompted calls for a parliamentary inquiry.
The two-month-long ‘gilets jaunes’, or ‘yellow vest’, movement in France, protesting the fall in living standards for low- and middle-income earners and against the powers of the country’s social and political elite, continues largely unabated. It has attracted worldwide attention, and not least in the United States, where the Left sees it as an echo of the Occupy Wall Street movement, where also supporters of President Donald Trump have hi-jacked it as a new symbol of protest against the liberal establishment, and where the latter interpret it as a devil of populism. Mediapart’s US correspondent Mathieu Magnaudeix reports from New York on the confused reactions across the Atlantic to the largely misunderstood revolt in France.
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking during a visit to Chad, said he "very deeply' regrets the decision by his US counterpart Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from Syria, commenting that 'An ally should be dependable'.
In a message he posted on Twitter on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump, currently battling for approval of a budget to beef up immigration barriers with a wall on the US border with Mexico, cited the terrorist shooting spree on Tuesday in Strasbourg to justify a clampdown on migrants, apparently ignorant of the fact that the suspect in the attack was born in the the eastern French city.
Reacting to a message posted on Twitter by US President Donald Trump, in which he goaded his French counterpart over current social unrest in France, foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said 'I say this to Donald Trump and the French president says it too: leave our nation be'.
The Guardian's world affairs editor Julian Borger argues that in the spat between US President Donald Trump and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, 'the outcomes of Trump’s meltdown could be far worse when it is not Macron on the receiving end but, say, Kim Jong-un'.
US President Donald Trump, apparently displeased with remarks warning against rise of nationalism pronounced by French President Emmanuel Macron during Armistice Day ceremonies attended in Paris by the US head of state, took to Twitter on Tuesday to say that 'They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along', underlining that France suffers from high unemployment, adding, 'By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France'.
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