Donald Trump threatened to impose crushing tariffs on French wine and champagne after the country’s leader said he wouldn’t be signing up to the president’s United Nations knock-off.
News broke over the weekend that the 79-year-old is creating an international “Board of Peace” chaired by none other than Trump himself, who would handpick the organization’s members, approve the group’s agenda, and designate his own successor.
Trump would also control the board’s funds, including a $1 billion entry fee for countries seeking permanent membership. The group is ostensibly being created to oversee reconstruction in Gaza, but nothing in the charter mentions Gaza or guarantees the funds would be used there.
President Emmanuel Macron’s office said on Monday that France—a permanent member of the actual U.N. Security Council—would not be joining over concerns that the board would undermine the U.N. framework, Politico reported. Asked to respond Monday to Macron’s decision not to join, Trump invoked his favorite cudgel for trying to force countries to bend to his will.
“Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon, so you know, that’s alright,” he said. “What I’ll do is if they feel, like, hostile, I’ll put a 200 percent tariff on his wines and champagnes, and he’ll join.”
Macron’s second and final five-year presidential term ends in May 2027.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump, who apparently doesn’t see the inherent conflict in threatening a sovereign country into joining a peace board, also confirmed that he had invited Russia’s warmongering President Vladimir Putin to join, while Putin’s close ally Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Belarusian dictator, is also on the invite list.
Hours after Trump threatened France’s key exports with devastating tariffs, he posted screenshots of text messages Macron had sent him.
“My friend, We are totally in line on Syria,” Macron wrote, according to a screenshot Trump posted to his Truth Social platform. “We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. Let us try to build great things.”
The French president offered to set up a G7 meeting in Paris on Thursday afternoon, following this week’s Global Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The president has demanded that world leaders attend a signing ceremony for the peace board’s charter at the annual summit.
The G7 meeting could include the Ukrainians, Danish, and Syrians, with “the russians in the margins,” Macron wrote, before also inviting Trump to dinner that night in Paris.
