Trump, world leaders celebrate the Normandy invasion that saved Europe from Nazism

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE - President Donald Trump commemorated Thursday the 75th anniversary of the fabled D-Day invasion by recounting "the story of an epic battle and the ferocious eternal struggle between good and evil," as the avowed nationalist offered a memorial to the transatlantic partnership and the foundation of America as the world's indispensable nation.

Trump joined French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders of the nations that came together to defeat Nazi Germany, and the thinning ranks of veterans of the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion, at the cemetery where nearly 10,000 American war dead are buried.

This anniversary comes as Trump and other leaders have been at odds over the status of the transatlantic relationship, with spats spilling into public about trade, defense spending and other issues.

"We are gathered here on Freedom's Altar. On these shores, on these bluffs, on this day 75 years ago, 10,000 men shed their blood and thousands sacrificed their lives for their brothers, for their countries, and for the survival of liberty," Trump said. "Today, we remember those who fell here, and we honor all who fought right here in Normandy. They won back this ground for civilization."

Before Trump spoke, Macron delivered a message that mixed praise for America's veterans with a full-throated embrace of the kind of multilateralism Trump has railed against as he's pursued an "America First" agenda. At one point, Macron addressed Trump directly and appeared to make a riff on Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan.

"We know what we owe to the United States of America. The United States of America, dear Donald Trump, dear president, which is never greater than when it is fighting for the freedom of others," Macron said. "The United States of America, that is never greater than when it shows its loyalty to the universal values that the Founding Fathers defended when nearly two and half centuries ago, France came to support its independence."

Trump sat with his arms crossed, opening his mouth to yawn at one point as Macron continued to praise global institutions and multilateral cooperation.

"We shall never cease to perpetuate the alliance of free people," Macron said, arguing that the various global institutions like the United Nations, NATO and the European Union were created for that purpose.

In the past, Trump has criticized all three of those organizations, including repeated claims that the European Union was created "to take advantage of the United States."

In his speech, Trump praised the various countries that joined in the allied fight against the "wicked tyranny of the Nazi empire," name-checking the Canadians, the British, the French and "the fighting Poles, the tough Norwegians and the intrepid Aussies."

"They were the citizens of free and independent nations united by their duty to their compatriots and to millions yet unborn," he said.

"And, finally, there were the Americans," the president added, before recounting the stories of young American men who fought in Normandy. Some of the men regaled by Trump were in the audience, which included several veterans from the war.

This anniversary gathering is likely to be the last with a large representation of D-Day veterans. There is an 80th anniversary planned, but even the youngest represented here Thursday would be approaching 100 then.

The president's speech focused heavily on the valor of the veterans. Unlike Macron, Trump did not mention the international rule-making institutions that grew out of the end of World War II. He offered broader appeals to unity.

"Today as we stand together upon this sacred earth, we pledge that or nations will forever be strong and united," he said. "We will forever be together."

After ending his remarks, Trump joined Macron near the waterfront of Omaha Beach as classic military bombers flew overhead. Joined by First Lady Melania Trump and Bridgitte Macron of France, the two men then left flowers next to the graves of fallen Americans near the beach.

Trump is spending less than a day in France - just long enough for the D-Day memorial and a meeting with Macron. He will return to his golf resort in Ireland Thursday afternoon, missing out on other D-Day ceremonies scheduled for later in the day.

Hours before Trump arrived in France, his Twitter account featured a haunting photograph of soldiers wading through the waves on D-Day, with a quote from Trump, apparently from his forthcoming speech, superimposed in the style of a movie poster.

"They did not know if they would survive the hour. They did not know if they would grow old. But they knew that America had to prevail. Their cause was this Nation, and generations yet unborn," the tweet read.

Trump's 2016 political brand was a fuzzy mix of "America First" isolationism and flag-waving nostalgia for a time when the United States had more certain footing in a changing world.

He has been openly hostile to NATO, the trans-Atlantic military alliance that is a direct inheritance of D-Day, although his language has softened since he campaigned in 2016 saying NATO was "obsolete."

The D-Day commemoration comes after two years of Trump either slighting or actively undermining the two principal institutions that have worked to ensure Europe's postwar stability and transatlantic ties: the European Union and NATO. Some see the emotional power of the Normandy landscape as a last-ditch attempt to ensure that those transatlantic ties still hold.

"As far as the Europeans are concerned, I think the general tone is one of desperation at the possibility that the lessons of history could be forgotten," said Francois Heisbourg, a former French presidential adviser and a senior adviser at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. "The lesson of history is that the West exists, and when the West is divided, very bad things happen. We don't forget that it took the Americans two years to get involved in World War II. But we also know we were saved by the Americans - not only by the Americans, but without the Americans it would not have been possible."

Other European observers see the anniversary as a more positive opportunity to reflect on deeper transatlantic divergences that began before Trump took office and that will likely continue after he leaves.

"It's both a reminder and a sign of the sacrifice, but it's also an opportunity to think about the future," said Benjamin Haddad, a French political scientist and the director of the Atlantic Council's Future Europe Initiative.

"It's important for European leaders to not over-focus on the personality of Trump - the quirks and the tweets," he said.

Some things, Haddad added, such as the tariffs Trump threatened to levy against the European Union, were a direct function of his personality. But there are others, such as the pivot to Asia and the request that the E.U. shoulder a bigger share of its defense costs, "that will outlast him, and that to be fair are entirely reasonable from an American perspective."

Giving a speech on the beaches of Normandy is something of a rite of passage for American presidents, who, regardless of their party affiliation, have typically used the opportunity to drive home a message about American internationalism.

"We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars," Ronald Reagan said in 1984, in the course of his iconic "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech, written by Peggy Noonan. "It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost."

In 2014, Barack Obama delivered another rousing address whose message was similar.

"We have to do our best to uphold in our own lives the values that they were prepared to die for," Obama said, referring to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives on D-Day. "We have to honor those who carry forward that legacy, recognizing that people cannot live in freedom unless free people are prepared to die for it."

Trump's relationship with Macron - once seemingly sanguine enough to warrant the label of "le bromance" - has soured in recent months.

All was copacetic during Trump's July 2017 visit to France, his first state visit as president, when he marveled at the size and spectacle of the French military's Bastille Day parade - a show he then tried, unsuccessfully, to recreate in Washington.

At the time when few European leaders seemed willing to engage with Trump, most notably German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron, stood out, himself freshly elected and the youngest president in modern French history.

But then he thought he could negotiate with Trump: first on preserving the Paris climate accords, then on the Iran nuclear deal, both signature policy achievements of the Obama administration.

First, Trump tore up the climate deal in spite of Macron's entreaties, saying he was elected to represent "the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." But the true humiliation came in Washington in April 2018, where Macron had traveled on a state visit with the sole objective of persuading Trump not to abandon the hard-won agreement with Iran.

Trump did it anyway, flicking a piece of dandruff off Macron's lapel. Macron was pilloried in the press at home for seeming too obsequious: much of the French press focused on one photograph of Trump leading Macron by the hand down a White House pathway, like a parent with a child.

But relations between the two men reached a level of open hostility in November 2018, when Trump arrived in Paris for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. As Air Force One arrived, he attacked Macron based on his misunderstanding that the French president had called for a European Army that would defend the continent against the United States.

When Macron then gave a soaring speech about the evils of nationalism, Trump took it as a personal attack, firing a round of Twitter artillery at his French counterpart.

"The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France, 26%, and an unemployment rate of almost 10%," Trump wrote at the time. "He was just trying to get onto another subject. By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people - and rightfully so!"

Some current American politics were also in evidence, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., a frequent Trump adversary, leading a delegation of some 60 U.S. lawmakers. She told reporters in Washington she was not sure she would interact with the president at all here.

Ahead of the anniversary, Trump struck a somber tone on Twitter, with a montage of images from a separate commemoration Wednesday in Portsmouth, the British port city where many of the Allied ships launched.

"As we approach the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, we proudly commemorate those heroic and honorable patriots who gave their all for the cause of freedom during some of history's darkest hours. #DDay75," Trump wrote.

Trump's own relationship to military service was a subtext. He received multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War, and previously said he was "lucky" to avoid service. But in an interview broadcast Wednesday, Trump said that while he "was not a fan" of the Vietnam War, he would have fought willingly.

"I would not have minded that at all," Trump told British interviewer Piers Morgan. "I would have been honored."

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McAuley reported from Caen, France.