Political Tribune

Donald Trump, Opinion, Politics

Trump’s Awkward Power Play Backfires As Macron Refuses To Be Bullied In Cringe Handshake Moment

Trump had a strange handshake at the Egypt piece summit with the president of France.

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Donald Trump has such a history of strange handshakes with world leaders that several articles have been written about it.

According to an article in The Guardian back in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first presidency, world leaders were already beginning to strategize about how to best handle themselves while shaking hands with Trump. There’s even a Wikipedia entry, “Donald Trump and Handshakes,” with nearly 40 citations.

“They say the handshake originated as a gesture designed to prove that both participants were unarmed. But Donald Trump has rewritten that rule along with all the others. In the hands of the US president, the handshake is a weapon,” the Guardian article said.

And one world leader who was among those strategizing was  Emmanuel Macron, then the newly elected president of France, whose knuckles famously turned white during an early Trump handshake.

“My handshake with him – it wasn’t innocent,” Macron said of his handshake with Trump that year.  “It’s not the be-all and the end-all of a policy, but it was a moment of truth.”

Now, eight years later, with both Trump and Macron still the leaders of their respective countries, and they’re still having strange handshakes. There was their “tug of war” handshake at the White House back in February, and then another one at Pope Francis’s funeral in April. Then, it happened again on Monday in Egypt, with both leaders on hand for the peace summit in Sharm-el-Sheik, following the agreement for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The handshake appeared to continue for more than 30 seconds, although it wasn’t immediately clear what was said between the two men. A lot of observers, though, had thoughts on the moment:

Photo courtesy of an X screenshot. 

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Stephen Silver

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Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy.

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