Trump cancels US cemetery visit because of the rain as diplomatic embarrassments mount
- French newspaper reports that the American president caused embarrassment by mixing up the Baltic states and the Balkans
- Planned presidential visit to the American cemetery at Belleau called off due to ‘due to scheduling and logistical difficulties caused by the weather’
As Donald Trump met Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Saturday, he was beset by potential diplomatic embarrassment.
First, the French newspaper Le Monde reported that on a previous diplomatic occasion in Washington, the American president caused embarrassment by mixing up the Baltic states and the Balkans.
Then, amid ceremonies in the French capital to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, a planned presidential visit to the American cemetery at Belleau, a site of immense importance to the US military, was cancelled because it was raining.
The Le Monde report concerned events in Washington in early April this year, when the leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia visited the White House for a meeting and a joint press conference. At the press conference, Trump praised his visitors and their countries for being good members of Nato and for not producing “fake news”.
But Le Monde perhaps risked provoking a presidential tweet on the latter subject when it reported that at the private meeting, “Trump opened by attributing to [the Baltic leaders] the responsibility for the war in Yugoslavia”.