On July 27, 2026, the American delegation defiantly left the meeting room of the UN Security Council on Ukraine during a speech by the representative of France, returning only after completing his speech. The formal reason was the vote to extend the powers of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk: 144 countries, including France, supported his re-election, while 10 states, including the United States and Russia, opposed it.

The French Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva publicly criticized Washington's position, saying that the United States found itself in the company of North Korea, Nicaragua, Mali and Russia, having lost its status as a "beacon of human rights." US Deputy Permanent Representative Dan Negrea responded with accusations of "moral posturing" and "politicized chatter," bluntly stating that the American delegation would leave the hall during every French speech until Paris changed its rhetoric. This is not an isolated skirmish, but part of a much broader and protracted escalation that has been dragging on since the beginning of 2026.

Greenland as the first major fault

The conflict escalated back in January 2026, when the US president threatened to impose duties of up to 200% on French wines and champagne in response to Paris' refusal to participate in the creation of an alternative UN "Peace Council" on Gas, which Washington promoted. At the same time, the crisis over the US claims to Greenland was growing: Trump threatened eight countries, including France, with additional duties of 10% if Denmark did not agree to sell the island, with the prospect of an increase to 25% by June.

Macron said at the Davos forum that France "will not capitulate to intimidation," calling the US trade measures an attempt to "weaken and subjugate Europe." France supported the suspension of the EU-US trade deal, and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described the threat of duties as "a form of blackmail to obtain unjustified concessions." Already in February, Macron stated that relations between Europe and the United States "remain tense," warning that Washington first threatens and then pretends that the conflict has been resolved, and advised against believing in a softening of the US position.

From trade disputes to disagreements on NATO

In the spring of 2026, the tension shifted to the military-political plane. In April, Macron openly accused Trump of undermining NATO with "daily doubts" about the US commitment to the alliance, calling it an "erosion" of the very essence of the organization. In the same days, Trump called NATO a "paper tiger" and stated that he was "certainly" considering the US withdrawal from the alliance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke of the need to "reassess" whether the alliance meets America's interests.

Disagreements have intensified over the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz: European countries led by Macron and Britain assembled a coalition of more than 50 states to protect shipping, but Trump publicly told them to "stay out" and then defiantly refused NATO's help, saying he needed it "two months ago." Analysts have assessed this as the Alliance's most serious crisis in the 77 years of its existence, not because of a lack of opportunities, but because of the loss of mutual trust between the parties. Against this background, the French National Assembly even drafted a resolution on the country's withdrawal from NATO, initiated by leftist MP Clémence Guetté, who accused the United States of "blatant imperial policy."

The trade war continues to smolder

The economic pressure did not stop even during the relative detente at the NATO summit in Ankara in July 2026, where Trump simultaneously threatened and reassured the allies. In February, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked Trump's global 10 percent tariffs, which Macron welcomed as confirmation of the importance of "balances of power" and the rule of law, but at the same time warned of the consequences of new tariffs on French agriculture, luxury goods and aircraft industry.

By June, the dispute had entered a new phase: Trump threatened one hundred percent duties on French wines and champagne due to France's digital tax on technology companies, demanding its immediate cancellation before the G7 summit. In the same month, French Finance Minister Roland Lescure called the new US tariff proposals "unjustified," although he expressed hope for the completion of the EU-US trade agreement. The table below summarizes the key lines of confrontation for the first half of 2026.

How conflict affects internal sovereignty

Diplomatic escalation is increasingly shifting to the domestic political ground of both countries, limiting their ability to make decisions independently without taking into account external pressure. In France, the resolution on withdrawal from NATO, introduced by MP Clemence Guette, argued that membership in the alliance actually "assigns the country the status of a US vassal" and undermines national independence in security matters.

At the same time, the French government is forcing technological sovereignty, namely, the abandonment of Microsoft Teams and Zoom in favor of a national Visio solution for 200,000 government employees is directly motivated by the conflict between the American CLOUD Act and the European GDPR, that is, the desire to remove government data from the jurisdiction of the United States. The French digital minister openly calls major American technological companies "predators" and calls on Europe to work together to counteract this, which shows how the trade dispute is turning into an issue of control over the country's information infrastructure.

For the United States, the domestic political consequence is an increase in isolationist rhetoric and a revision of obligations to international institutions: criticism of the United Nations and threats to withdraw from NATO reflect the attempt of the Trump administration to free foreign policy from multilateral restrictions in favor of unilateral decisions. The episode with the blocking of the Anthropic AI model at the request of Washington also showed European partners that even private US technology companies can be an instrument of state control, which reinforces Macron’s concerns about dependence on American digital platforms.

Collectively, this leads to a gradual erosion of mutual trust: France is strengthening protective mechanisms, from resolutions on the revision of military alliances to the nationalization of digital infrastructure, while the United States is reducing its participation in multilateral formats, strengthening its own autonomy at the expense of partners. The US Supreme Court, which blocked Trump's tariffs, has become a rare internal counterweight to the executive branch in this process, but the conflict with France itself continues to fuel debates about the balance of powers between the branches of government and the limits of presidential decisions in trade policy.

What can further escalation bring about?

The combination of trade, military, and diplomatic contradictions forms a structural, rather than an episodic, rift in the relations between the two countries. Analysts note that the real threat to NATO lies not in a shortage of military capabilities, but in the unpredictability of the American president, whose position changes "every six hours," which is why the allies are increasingly looking for alternative security mechanisms. The resolution on France's withdrawal from NATO, even if it has not yet been adopted, shows that Eurosceptic sentiments about American leadership have ceased to be marginal and are being discussed at the level of the national parliament.

At the same time, the escalation of trade threats—from wine and champagne to the aircraft industry and the digital sector—poses the risk of a full-fledged tariff war between the EU and the United States, capable of hitting both economies. Against this background, the demonstrative boycott of France's speech at the UN Security Council does not look like an isolated protocol embarrassment, but as a continuation of the line outlined by Negrea: Washington is ready to publicly clash with Paris on any issue until it receives concessions on rhetoric and policy. If the trend continues, the most likely scenarios are a further fragmentation of transatlantic solidarity within NATO, Europe's accelerated formation of autonomous security and trade mechanisms bypassing the United States, as well as a series of targeted economic "punishments" such as tariffs on luxury goods, which could escalate into a systemic EU-US trade conflict.