First change: 11/30/2022 – 22:46
Emmanuel Macron is visiting the United States at a time when relations with Washington are less accessible. France and the North American nation are historical allies who helped each other in key moments such as the two world wars, but their relations have had many disagreements in recent years. The crises of both the expulsion of NATO forces from France during the administration of Charles de Gaulle, the denial of French participation in the Iraq war in 2003 or the role of the United States in the war in Ukraine have been some of the points that have existed throughout history. who alienated these nations.
Emmanuel Macron is making a major visit to Washington this week at a time when relations between France and the United States are less accessible. Issues such as the role of the United States in the war in Ukraine, its benefits from the energy and economic crisis from this conflict or the multimillion-dollar aid of the green transition from the European Union – and specifically Paris – have left the partners; a traditional partner such as the United States of America.
Those relations date back to the very origins of the United States of America as a nation, when France was one of the most important partners of the colonists when they achieved independence from the British Empire. An event that created a cordial relationship throughout the nineteenth century and even led France to sell the territory of Louisiana for 23 million dollars during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, which allowed the United States to double in size.
Some examples of this relationship are the fact that the United States of America never went to war with France or France in 1886 gave this country the Statue of Liberty, one of its most important symbols. It came who led them to join the republic at the turn of the 20th century, especially when Europe engaged in 1914, when, although at the beginning of 1917 the United States remained neutral, it went to war to defend its interests. The United Kingdom and France against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The help that was necessary to obtain victory in 1918.
The United States supported France in both world wars.
This support made the former president Woodrow Wilson very popular in France, although the terms of the peace agreement between the United States and France were in fact opposed, since Paris demanded greater harshness against Germany, which would force the nation to pay all costs. to weaken the future war. A policy that would lead Germany into a deep economic and political crisis that arose years after Nazism.
During the interwar period, the United States was in charge of providing arms to France against the growing threat from Adolf Hitler’s Germany. But this aid only started when World War II began, and France collapsed before the German advance in June 1940.
At that time the United States was not a part of the world war, but as soon as it began in 1941, it was an active part of the fight against Nazism in Europe and against Vichy France, the puppet government in Berlin. The United States of America helped the members of the Free French to recapture the country in 1944 after Normandy in the ports and in their victory against Nazi Germany in 1945 it was again in France and Britain.
In addition, after the war, the United States helped in the reconstruction. It is estimated that the North American nation had between credits and subsidies nearly 5,000 million dollars at that time, of which 2,300 million were invested in non-refundable funds, something that France, the second country, benefited the most from the Marshall plan.
France, a NATO member who had a disagreement with US leaders
France thus became part of the Cold War in the West. The two nations placed allies against the Soviet Union and founded member organizations such as NATO. Despite this alliance, the United States maintained many differences regarding the shares of France with its colonies. A crisis also arose in 1956, when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, after the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal, and the United States forced these three countries to stop their attacks.
These disagreements grew even more after the arrival of Charles De Gaulle, who wanted to develop his nuclear program, which did not have the approval of Washington. De Gaulle was opposed to the dominant power of the United States in the West, when France was to be abandoned.
He drove out of Gaul the government of Gaul in an attempt to make a free defensive force, and expelled the company’s forces from the country. The state of relations with the United States was strained, although France’s final withdrawal from the military order never took place.
Controversies of the 21st century
Over the last three decades, the relationship between the two countries has grown, although France was increasingly interested in leading the European Union’s policy together with Germany. In fact, tensions did not return until 2003, when then French President Jacques Chirac refused to send troops into the war started by George Bush in Iraq.
This issue led to a campaign of boycott against French products in the United States of America, which was also extrapolated to French fries, when the Americans called them “french fries”, -French potatoes – for the “freedom of fries” -freedom of potatoes.
And although in general the two countries have shared goals, such as the fight against terrorism, in recent years the relationship has become difficult again for various reasons. Some of them are the progressive deterioration of the relationship between the former President Donald Trump and the French president Emmanuel Macron or the most recent role of the United States – already with Biden in power – in the war in Ukraine.
To these problems, the crisis has been brought about after the confirmation of the AUKUS military agreement at the end of 2021 between the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Australia, which gave the latter nation the ability to assemble nuclear submarines. That agreement dealt heavily with France’s economic interests in this matter with Australia, of which neither Paris nor the European Union knew until it was published.
This issue caused Elysium to order its ambassadors to the United States and Australia to withdraw as a protest measure and started the biggest diplomatic crisis between the two nations in more than two decades.
France is one of the main defenders of the economic and military independence of Europe with respect to the United States of America, which is why Macron is a great defender of the creation of a European army and the closest critic of green aid to companies launched at 369 billion dollars. by Joe Biden The policy, which Europe claims will harm its products and which, with increased US fuel prices, could lead to a transatlantic trade war.
