Like the hangover from a Contiki tour, US President Donald Trump has again emerged drained from transatlantic travel.

His trip was bookended by a tweet war and a bone-crushing handshake from French President Emmanuel Macron.

And in the middle, he prompted outrage by cancelling a visit to the graves of US soldiers killed during World War I.

While turmoil has followed Mr Trump's past visits to Europe, this time around the uproar was coming from closer to home too.

The President arrived on the continent delivering this bellicose tweet in response to le provocation:

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The provocation was the French President suggesting some form of pan European cyber defence against a number of countries including the US.

For an American public weary of funding forces over the world, the tough talk about France and Germany paying more for their own defence is seen as forthright but fair enough.

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Mr Trump's blue with Mr Macron likely played well for both their domestic audiences.

But what came next was a more problematic image for a President who has repeated his love for the US military loudly and more often than perhaps anything else.

Mr Trump (L) received a tight handshake from the French President. ( Reuters: Carlos Barria )

Wet weather meant helicopter Marine One — part of a fleet that costs more than $US11 billion — couldn't fly to a service honouring the US war dead.

The White House said security meant lumbering the huge Presidential motorcade through Paris wasn't on.

Staff for former presidents were incredulous. They claim there is always a wet weather plan.



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Indeed the President's motorcade has been seen rushing by in Washington DC when bad weather has prevented Marine One whisking the President to a MAGA rally.

Organising in a foreign city would've been more difficult no doubt, but staffers are probably paying for the damaging storyline that developed.

Fortunately for the White House, with the midterms over and a re-election campaign in 2020 well into the distance, electoral punishment doesn't seem likely.

The fact Congress is not sitting also limits the damage with an American public still weary from the midterms, and now more focused on football and thanksgiving.

But that didn't stop the internet and the critics having a field day, claiming the President didn't want to risk getting get wet to honour those who died in the mud.

His previous problems with umbrellas were recycled, as were pictures of nemesis President Barack Obama honouring veterans in driving rain.

It wasn't aided by his own decision to spend the time instead sending out highly partisan tweets, including threatening to cut funding to California as it was mourning those killed in bushfires.

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David Frum from the Atlantic magazine, who served as a speechwriter to President George W Bush, unleashed this scathing thread:

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The outrage may not have been entirely fair but it came at a sensitive time back home.

The front page of the New York Times showed troops camped out on the border on the President's orders awaiting the migrant caravan with some reports they'll miss thanksgiving.

Pentagon officials have privately called the deployment a morale-sapping waste of time.

Mr Trump being seen to snub the fallen at the same time as sending the military on an unpopular border mission — the first since the 1980s — is a poor combination.

The finale of the President's Europe trip would've been just as unsatisfying for the White House as the beginning and middle.

In what's becoming a habit, President Macron used a speech to follow up his handshake with a verbal slap down — a venomous version of the French double kiss.

With Mr Trump watching on, Mr Macron spoke out against nationalism, calling it a betrayal of patriotism.

Sorry, this video has expired Emmanuel Macron warns against dangerous nationalism in the United States and Europe.

Despite pursuing his "America First" policies since taking office, Mr Trump has only recently started using the label "nationalism" to describe his own views.

He has wholeheartedly embraced it just in the past few weeks, calling himself a proud nationalist at recent rallies.

It makes the French President's reference all the more pointed, and leaves little doubt who it was intended to slight.

President Macron went so far as to warn against "old demons coming back to wreak chaos and death".

His defence of institutions like the UN and European Union was another rejection of the President's America first (and at times lone) agenda.

"By putting our own interests first, with no regard for others, we erase the very thing that a nation holds dearest, and the thing that keeps it alive: its moral values," Mr Macron said.

Remember the last trip for President Trump was not kind either — with the joint press conference with President Vladimir Putin in July largely seen as a triumph for Moscow.

During the same trip he also apologised to British Prime Minister Theresa May when a newspaper interview in which he criticised her hit the streets in the middle of a black tie dinner she was hosting for him.

Russia could be the main benefactor from Europe and the United States not working together. ( AP: Benoit Tessier )

The brawls with European leaders on behalf of American taxpayers will play well back home. But cancelling the ceremony has not and there's likely to be sharp questions waiting back in Washington.

Fake news may not cut it as an answer, but with midterm recounts continuing and the row of the new Attorney-General continuing, it may well be lost in the maelstrom.

The US President's last two European trips have been the kind that might leave a traveller tinged with regret, wondering if it's worth the bother.

The world had better hope it is, because it's hard to imagine anyone other than Russia benefiting from Europe and the US not working together.