French President Emmanuel Macron has been on quite a tear these days. His fellow European leaders always knew the young statesman was an outspoken and ambitious man. But the previous week or so has been an especially testy time for the Frenchman. Macron is in a hurry to make history and cement his place in it.

On November 6, Macron took to French radio and talked about a concept that has become his cause celebre: the establishment of a continent-wide European army. The idea is not a novel one – European politicians have discussed the plausibility of a joint European military force in years past, particularly when foreign relations are in rough waters. Except this time, Macron’s suggestion got a rise out of the president of the United States, who took Macron’s argument for European autonomy as disrespect. President Trump retaliated to the slight as he usually does, through Twitter, taking a shot at the French leader’s horrible poll numbers and for being an ungrateful ally. While Trump and Macron eventually patched things up to a misunderstanding, the French president escalated the battle the next day by describing “nationalism” (one of Trump’s favorite words) to the assembled audience of dignitaries as “a betrayal of patriotism.”