Another visit from a world leader, another awkward Trump handshake...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest world leader to pay the White House a visit under Trump’s administration, following in the footsteps of Justin Trudeau and Theresa May.
During the German leader’s appointment on Friday, the two world leaders discussed everything from the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to relations with Russia, but it was neither of those topics that got the world talking.
Instead it was what happened after the meeting, with Donald Trump appearing to snub Angela Merkel, not offering up his hand for the signature Trump handshake.
As the US president and the German chancellor posed for photographs in the Oval Office, Angela can be seen asking her host, ‘do you want to have a handshake?’ an offer which Trump ignored, instead staring at the floor.
Despite supposedly using a power play handshake routine to dominate his counterparts, Trump has been known to fall short when it comes to greeting world leaders, delivering the most awkward handshakes under pressure.
In fact, other world leaders would probably consider Angela Merkel lucky for avoiding the experience, with Theresa May ending up holding hands with the president and poor Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe getting increasingly bewildered as Trump shook his hand for a whopping 19 seconds.
It is unsurprising that Trump has got his guard up around the German Chancellor, with Angela Merkel being one of the world leaders who is not afraid to stand up to him, condemning Trump’s Muslim ban earlier this year, stating that the order went against her ‘interpretation of the basic tenets of international refugee support and cooperation’
Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer has since been in touch with the German publication, Der Spiegel, to insist that it was all a misunderstanding, explaining ‘I don’t believe he heard the request.’ Hmm we'll pretend we believe that.
