Trump proves yet again he gives the world’s weirdest handshakes

President Donald Trump met on Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron to do a dance around his administration’s abandonment of our European allies, specifically in regards to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was another chance to watch Trump engage in one of his patented awkward handshakes with Macron. 

Trump’s history of bizarre handshakes (and sometimes avoiding them) with world leaders goes back to his first administration. Trump’s handshakes are just one of the many petty, and archaic, attempts Trump has of performing what he perceives as superiority.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was on the receiving end of one of the longest, most uncomfortable hand embraces from Trump. The prime minister seemed more relieved than anyone when the ordeal was over.

In March 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t shake hands with Trump in the Oval office at all. Both leaders appeared to ignore photographers’ requests for the two to press the flesh. Of course, Trump had said she “ruined Germany” back in 2015, following the German chancellor’s selection to be TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Then there was Trump’s unfortunate attempt at the ASEAN-Way Handshake to begin the Association of Southeast Asian Nation Summit in Manilla in the fall of his first term.

And who could forget the absurd tugging Trump did after nominating Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court. 

On Monday, Trump could not bring himself to call his buddy Vladimir Putin a “dictator, nor could he acknowledge that Russia was the aggressor in the war with Ukraine—something Macron did with ease. However, Trump was successful in demonstrating to the world that he can still shake hands like the uncle you try to avoid talking to at a wedding.

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