The diplomatic pleasantries evaporated at Davos this morning. French President Emmanuel Macron didn’t hold back, labeling U.S. tariff threats “crazy” and “unacceptable” just hours after President Donald Trump threatened a staggering 200% levy on French wine and champagne.
The rapid escalation reportedly stems from a personal snub. Macron refused to join Trump’s newly proposed “Board of Peace”—an initiative that requires a $1 billion entry fee from member nations. Trump’s response to the rejection was blunt.
“I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,” Trump told reporters, adding that “nobody wants” Macron anyway because he will be out of office soon.
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Macron’s retort came swiftly from the World Economic Forum podium. Warning that Europe would not be bullied into “vassalization” or accept the “law of the strongest,” the French leader explicitly threatened to deploy the EU’s “anti-coercion instrument”—a powerful economic weapon Brussels has never used against a strategic ally.
“It is crazy things… that we can be put in a situation to use the anti-coercion mechanism for the very first time [vis-à-vis the U.S.],” Macron told the stunned audience. “But this is a consequence of just unpredictability and useless aggressivity.”
The wine feud appears to be just one front in a widening rift. Macron also revealed a private text message he sent to Trump questioning the U.S. President’s aggressive push to buy Greenland, a move that has sparked separate tariff threats against eight other European nations.
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“I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” Macron wrote to Trump, urging a return to “respect” between allies.
But on stage, Macron’s message was far less private. He called for a Europe that refuses to submit to “bullies,” warning that trade wars and “races towards overproduction” would only produce losers.
“We do prefer respect to bullies,” Macron said. “And we do prefer rule of law to brutality.”
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