“Does Macron speak for Europe?”

Slamming recent comments by French President Emmanuel Macron, who appeared to be advocating a move away from Europe from the United States, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called for clarification whether other European nations support Macron’s position and to readjust our alliance accordingly.

In a roughly two-minute clip, Rubio began by quoting Macron’s speech comments to reporters after his visit to China, including his position that Europe should “detach” from the United States and “not depend on the dollar”, as well as the need to avoid conflicts “which are not their[s]” like the one on Taiwan.

We need to know if @EmmanuelMacron speak for Europe

After his 6-hour meeting in China, he told reporters that Europe should create distance from the United States and should not get involved in supporting America over China in what concerns Taiwanhttps://t.co/xoFmUGkumH pic.twitter.com/Ps718bXSyn

—Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) April 9, 2023

It was the French president’s first trip to China in four years.

Rubio, who is vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, also shared Politics interview with Macron which contained his full comments.

Calling it “a good time for us to ask Europe [whether] Macron speaks[s] for all of Europe”, Rubio wondered if the French president was now “the head of Europe” and “the most powerful leader in Europe”.

“Because if he is, there are some things we will have to change,” he said.

Europe and “France in particular,” he noted, “have been heavily dependent on the United States for seventy years for their own defense.”

“In fact, when Macron tried to play the role of global superpower and sent troops to North Africa to fight terrorists, he couldn’t even send his own troops there,” Rubio said. “We had to fly them there and we had to fly them back; he could not even send his own troops there.

“So if they decide to break up on their own and follow Macron’s example, it will save us a lot of money,” he added.

Regarding the French leader’s remarks on Europe’s involvement in “conflicts that are not ours”, Rubio expressed the need to “ask Europe, does he speak for them?”

“We are quite heavily involved in Ukraine at the moment [and] we’re spending a lot of our taxpayers’ money on a European war, and I supported that because I think it’s in the national interest of the United States to be allies of our allies,” did he declare.

However, he warned, “if, in fact, Macron is speaking on behalf of all of Europe, and their current position is that they are not going to choose sides between the United States and China on Taiwan; maybe we shouldn’t choose sides either.

“Maybe we should basically say we’re going to focus on Taiwan and the threats from China, and you’re dealing with Ukraine and Europe,” he said.

“So we have to know, is Macron speaking for Macron or is Macron speaking for Europe?” he added. “And we need to get the response pretty quickly because China is very excited about what he said.”

Although China “enthusiastically supports[s] everything he said,” Rubio claimed that Macron apparently “said even worse.”

“But the French presidency insisted that all journalists who got this interview wanted to review the transcript and they apparently took back even more aggressive things he said,” he said.

“So we need to know where Europe is at,” he concluded.

The remarks follow an interview published on Sunday which quoted Macron as saying that Europe must not be a “follower” of the United States or China in Taiwan in order to avoid “crises that are not ours”.

“The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans have to be followers and adapt to the American pace and a Chinese overreaction,” he told media after returning from a three-day state visit on Friday.

In response, Kyle Orton, a terrorism and national security researcher and analyst, accused Macron of having “really outdone himself with this crawling to China.”

#FrancePresident Macron has really outdone himself with this crawling at #China. https://t.co/m2sgvqO9Xp

— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) April 9, 2023

The case comes after Chinese fighter jets and warships simulated strikes on Taiwan in a three-day operation after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with the Speaker of the House of States United, Kevin McCarthy, California.

China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory to be taken one day, by force if necessary.

Follow Joshua Klein on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.

Not all news on the site expresses the point of view of the site, but we transmit this news automatically and translate it through programmatic technology on the site and not from a human editor.

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