Will Europe turn on America?

French President Emmanuel Macron took an unusually anti-American stance in a new interview, stressing the need for Europe to act on its own accord and avoid getting entangled with American priorities over issues like China and Taiwan. This is timely, considering our coverage of an underreported story last week: “Chinese and French energy companies settled an energy trade in yuan for the first time in history.”

Macron said as much in the interview, publicly stating that the French and Europe, in general, should not be dependent on the “extraterritoriality of the U.S. dollar.” Macron sees a world in which a unified Europe, presumably with the French at the helm, can act in the increasingly multi-polar world order.

Macron’s bold stance also reflects the reality that Europe has largely suffered from America’s recent geopolitical initiatives. Funding the Ukrainian war, which other European countries like Germany were once hesitant to do, put the continent in an energy and inflation fiasco as they originally depended on Russian oil. They are now relying on American LNG. America’s hardline on China also presents economic fears, which prompted Macron’s recent visit in the first place.