While Europe is pushing back publicly against U.S. President Donald Trump over Greenland, the language appears softer behind the scenes.
Trump published a text message on Tuesday that he received from French President Emmanuel Macron, confirmed as genuine by Macron’s office.
Starting with “My friend,” Macron’s tone was more deferential than the criticism that France and some of its European partner nations are openly voicing against Trump’s push to wrest Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
Before broaching the Greenland dispute, Macron opted in his message to first talk about other issues where he and Trump seem roughly on the same page.
“We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran,” the French leader wrote in English.
Then, he added: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” immediately followed by: “Let us try to build great things.”
That was the only mention that Macron made of the semi-autonomous Danish territory in the two sections of message that Trump published. It wasn’t immediately clear from Trump’s post when he received the message.
Trump breaks with tradition
World leaders’ private messages to each other rarely make it verbatim into the public domain — enabling them to project one face publicly and another to each other.
But Trump — as is his wont across multiple domains — is casting traditions and diplomatic niceties to the wind and, in the process, lifting back the curtain on goings-on that usually aren’t seen.
This week, a text message that Trump sent to Norway’s prime minister also became public, released by the Norwegian government and confirmed by the White House.
In it, Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace,” the message read.
It concluded, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
On Tuesday, Trump also published a flattering message from Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, which the alliance also confirmed as authentic.
“I am committed to finding a way forward on Greenland,” Rutte wrote. “Can’t wait to see you. Yours, Mark.”
Rutte has declined to speak publicly about Greenland despite growing concern about Trump’s threats to “acquire” the island and what that would mean for the territorial integrity of NATO ally Denmark. Pressed last week about Trump’s designs on Greenland and warnings from Denmark that any U.S. military action might mean the end of NATO, Rutte said: “I can never comment on that. That’s impossible in public.”
Macron’s relationship with Trump
Macron likes to say that he can get Trump on the phone any time he wants. He proved it last September by making a show of calling up the president from a street in New York, to tell Trump that police officers were blocking him to let a VIP motorcade pass.
“Guess what? I’m waiting in the street because everything is frozen for you!” Macron said as cameras filmed the scene.
It’s a safe bet that Macron must know by now — a year into Trump’s second spell in office — that there’s always a risk that a private message to Trump could be made public.
Macron said Tuesday that he had “no particular reaction” to the message’s publication when a journalist asked him about it.
“I take responsibility for everything that I do. It’s my habit to be coherent between what I say on the outside and what I do in a private manner. That’s all.”
Still, the difference between Macron’s public and private personas was striking.
Hosting Russia and Ukraine together
Most remarkably, the French leader told Trump in his message that he would be willing to invite representatives from both Ukraine and Russia to a meeting later this week in Paris — an idea that Macron has not voiced publicly.
The Russians could be hosted “in the margins,” Macron suggested, hinting at the potential awkwardness of inviting Moscow representatives while France is also backing Ukraine with military and other support against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Macron wrote that the meeting could also include “the danish, the syrians” and the G7 nations — which include the United States.
The French president added: “let us have a dinner together in Paris together on thursday before you go back to the us.”
He then signed off simply with “Emmanuel.”
Making nice only goes so far
Despite Macron’s persistent efforts, in both of Trump’s terms, not to ruffle his feathers, any payback has been mixed, at best.
Trump bristled on Monday, threatening punitive tariffs, when told that Macron has no plans to join Trump’s new Board of Peace that will supervise the next phase of the Gaza peace plan, despite receiving an invitation.
“Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon,” Trump told reporters, even through the French leader has more than a year left in office before the end of his second and last term in 2027.
“I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and champagnes and he’ll join,” Trump said.
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Lorne Cook in Brussels, Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Kostya Manenkov in Davos contributed.
