Trump’s first state dinner honours French President Emmanuel Macron
IT WASN”T the star-studded affair former president Barack Obama used to put on but President Donald Trump’s first state dinner was still one for the history books.
The intimate guest list of 123 people included Apple CEO Tim Cook and the company’s vice president Lisa Jackson and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who came with his wife Jerry Hall.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte were the night’s honorary guests.
A number of Olympians also attended including gold medal winning curler John Shuster and hockey player Meghan Duggan.
But it was the finer details of the night — all done to honour the French leader and his country — that truly stole the show.
The menu was planned specifically to “showcase the best of America’s cuisines and traditions, with nuances of French influences”.
The first course, a salad of greens was made with vegetables from the White House garden and included goat cheese gateau, tomato jam and buttermilk biscuit crumbles with “young variegated lettuce”.
The main course was a rack of spring lamb with burnt cipollini soubise and Carolina gold rice jambalaya. It was cooked in a traditional New Orleans way.
And for dessert was a nectarine tart with creme fraiche ice cream and honey from the White House.
All of the menu items were chosen specifically because of their French origins and the New Orleans vibe was yet another nod to France.
The wines for the night were also chosen to “complement the menu and embody the historic friendship between the United States and France”, a White House statement said.
But it wasn’t just the menu’s finer details that honoured the French-US relationship.
After Melania Trump’s all white suit and wide-brimmed hat went viral, the First Lady changed into a glamorous gown from French designer Chanel.
Macron’s wife also wore something from France, an outfit from Louis Vitton.
Even the crème and gold colour scheme of the night was done while keeping American and French influence in mind.
The First Lady personally oversaw the entire planning of the evening, picking out the floral arrangements of cherry blossom, white sweet peas and white lilac to fill the White House.
President Trump was obviously happy with what she’d done, calling his wife “America’s absolutely incredible First Lady”.
The night was filled with the two presidents confirming their strong friendship.
In Macron’s speech, the French president made a joke at the UK’s expense.
“This White House so full of history, that the British burned down in 1815, and I say this in the most amicable way, and that James Monroe then had the brilliant idea of decorating in French furniture, a man of taste, in fact, he was a former ambassador to Paris,” Macron said.
The French president also touched on how both of the world leaders weren’t exactly tipped to win either of their respective elections.
“On both sides of the ocean some two years ago, very few would have bet on us being here together today,” Macron said.
President Trump also toasted to their nations’ friendship.
“May our friendship grow even deeper, may our kinship grow even stronger, and may our sacred liberty never die,” President Trump said.
The US president said the evening was a celebration “of the nearly two-and-a-half centuries of friendship between two countries.”
Earlier in the day, Trump and Macron lavished praise — and even a pair of kisses — on each other.
“It’s an honour to call you my friend,” Trump said, after predicting Macron would be a historic leader of France.
In one light moment, Trump sought to demonstrate some of the personal chemistry he claimed.
The US President brushed something off Macron’s suit jacket, saying: “We have a very special relationship; in fact, I’ll get that little piece of dandruff off. We have to make him perfect — he is perfect.”
As for substantive issues, one of Macron’s main objectives during his three-day visit to Washington was to persuade Trump to stay in the Iran accord, which is aimed at restricting Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
Trump is sceptical of the pact’s effectiveness — “it’s insane, it’s ridiculous,” he said Tuesday — but he declined to say whether he would withdraw the U.S. by the May 12 deadline he has set.
He reminded his French counterpart of what he sees as flaws in the agreement, which he said fails to address ballistic missiles or Iran’s activities in Yemen or Syria.
Trump ended his first year in office without receiving a foreign leader on a state visit, the first president in nearly 100 years to fail to do so.
He was Macron’s guest last July at the annual Bastille Day military parade in Paris. Macron and his wife, Brigitte, also took Trump and his wife on a tour of Napoleon’s tomb and whisked them up in the Eiffel Tower for dinner overlooking the City of Light.
