Summits are always elaborately choreographed, but never before have allies had pre-emptive plans on how to counteract an American president’s handshake. Trump’s are more like dominance tests than greetings. First Justin Trudeau in Washington and then Emmanuel Macron in Brussels prepared to out-grip him on his patented “I’ll-rip-your-shoulder-out-and-show-you-who’s-boss” handshake.
When Trump pushed aside Dusko Markovic, the prime minister of Montenegro, to get in front of the NATO pack in Brussels and then straightened his jacket with primate panache, J. K. Rowling tweeted: “You tiny, tiny, tiny little man.”
Donald Trump is not a tough guy. He’s a faux tough guy. That is not even in the American tradition. All of our famously tough icons, on screen and in life, were able to exude strength without using brute force. And they did it while standing up for people, not smacking them down.
Aris Folley at AOL:
Social media was abuzz on Thursday after another video emerged of an awkward moment surrounding President Trump's body language at a NATO summit in Brussels.
After a video of Trump appearing to push past another European leader to get a prominent position at the NATO gathering went viral, another clip surfaced that seemed to show France's newly elected president, Emmanuel Macron, dodging his U.S. counterpart's handshake attempt.
