“He’s a smart customer,” said Trump, tapping Macron affectionately on the upper arm after telling a story about a meeting in Paris, when he discovered that what the French leader had been saying in his native tongue about a trade deal was not what he’d told him.
Macron responded by gripping Trump’s hand and they laughed together, with the 47-year-old even appearing to wipe a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye.
On the way into the West Wing they shared an embrace and another crushing handshake.
Then in their joint press conference, they broke off after their opening statements to share yet another grip and grin, before heaping compliments on each other.
Macron hailed their “friendship from your first term” while Trump lavished praise on the Frenchman for the restoration of fire-damaged Notre-Dame cathedral.
“Say hello to your beautiful wife,” Trump said at the end of the press conference.
International diplomacy is always heavy with symbolism, but Macron and Trump have always been unusually blatant in the way they use body language as a power play.
Since they first met, Macron has appeared keen to resist Trump’s habit of using overbearing handshakes to put other world leaders — both literally and figuratively — off balance.
‘Friendly but firm’
The mother of all handshakes came when they met for the first time in Brussels in 2017, the year they both started their first presidential terms.
Grimacing with effort, the much younger Macron grabbed Trump’s hand until the US president was forced — twice — to release his grip.
