PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron downplayed the death of an oak tree he had offered U.S. President Donald Trump last year on Tuesday, saying people shouldn’t read symbols into everything and that he would send the American leader a new tree. It was put in quarantine because of fears parasites on the tree could spread to others on the White House property. “We will send him another, it is not a tragedy,” Macron told Switzerland’s RTS network on the sidelines of an International Labour Organisation meeting in Geneva. “It turns out that this oak was put in quarantine for American sanitary reasons and the poor thing did not survive,” Macron said. “I’ll send another oak because I think the U.S. Marines and the friendship for freedom between our peoples is well worth it.”

Source: National Post June 12, 2019 15:22 UTC