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Why Donald Trump’s weird handshake matters（793 words）
By Andrew Hill
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It was the handshake felt around the world. Two presidents, Emmanuel Macron of France and Donald Trump of the US, locked hands for barely five seconds for the cameras, but with a force that whitened their knuckles.
Applying the zero-sum logic that the US president likes to use for everything from property deals to peace negotiations, analysts focused on the question of “who won?”. Some reckoned Mr Macron’s aggressive approach had forced Mr Trump to release first, giving the younger man first blood.
In previous summit-level encounters, Mr Trump has visibly disconcerted Shinzo Abe of Japan with a 19-second shake (including a patronising pat on the hand), been outsmarted by Justin Trudeau of Canada — who asserted his superior grip at their sit-down photocall — and allegedly snubbed Germany’s Angela Merkel by not shaking her hand at all.
Handshakes combine the ritual of the truce (the hand-clasp first emerged as a signal that a right-hander was not about to draw his weapon) with the preamble of battle. Strong handshake equals strong leader seems to be Mr Trump’s calculation, though as a self-confessed “germaphobe” who once said handshakes were “barbaric” perhaps he is simply overcompensating to conquer his deepest fear.
Mr Trump is not the first to consider the handshake important. When anthropologist Chet Creider examined the gestures of east African tribes in the 1970s, he identified seven distinct handshakes, which differed according to age, respect and friendliness.
Similarly, a colleague recalls how a Mexican politician once demonstrated five distinctive abrazos (hugs) used in the 1980s within the ruling PRI party and government, “gradated by rank and proximity to the seat of power”.
Not all US presidents are forceful handshakers. Another senior colleague, who has met a few, recalls George HW Bush’s shake as “very soft . . . barely half his hand engaging”.
Other expert handshakers use a combination of gestures. A novel, Primary Colors, based on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns, begins by describing the handshake as “the threshold act, the beginning of politics”, one that Mr Clinton refined into an irresistible combination of hand-clasp and left-hand touch on the arm or shoulder.
While Mr Trump’s fear of germs may be extreme, he is right about the hazards of handshaking. One chief executive, who has to shake 100s of hands a week as he tours his retail empire, told me he had developed a sore spot on the side of his hand where most people grip, giving him a fear of forceful shakers.
Glenn Gould, the pianist, seeing hands extended, would pass well-wishers a card, reading: “A pianist’s hands are sometimes injured in ways which cannot be predicted. Needless to say, this could be quite serious. Therefore I will very much appreciate it if handshaking can be avoided. Rest assured that there is no intent to be discourteous.”
First-hand accounts from FT reporters reveal a variety of greeting styles. Anna Wintour, editor in chief of Vogue, “bats your hand away after the merest of intentions to shake it”.
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s leader, is another forceful shaker, as is Vladimir Putin, who combines a “very, very firm” grip with a piercing stare.
Entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson has “the world’s limpest handshake”, according to another colleague, while Italian executives such as Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone, often favour “a half shoulder-clasp with handshake combo . . . a sort of step towards the bro hug”.
That almost all these examples are man-to-man greetings is a reflection of the continuing dominance of men at the top of politics and business. But the rise of women leaders poses a challenge to the male old guard’s approach.
George W Bush’s frat-boy backrub-greeting to Ms Merkel at a G8 meeting in 2006was an early signpost to the etiquette minefield that exists for summiteers and conference-goers. For example, when, if ever, should a man greet a woman with a kiss at a professional meeting? (Jean-Claude Juncker, a singularly touchy-feely world leader, has overcome this dilemma by seemingly embracing everyone, regardless of gender).
In geopolitics, though, the handshake is likely to remain the weapon of choice — as useful as a tool of revenge as of assault. Mr Trump got his own back on Mr Macron later during the Nato summit by giving him a shoulder-dislocating handshake when he met him on the red carpet.
That reminded another colleague of a 1986 reporting assignment to Kabul to meet Soviet-backed dictator Najibullah, a former secret police chief who specialised in torture.
“He came up to me after an Afghan translator mistranslated my question to him. I had asked: ‘How would you like to go down in history?’ My question was mistranslated as: ‘How do you compare yourself with Hitler?’”.
“There are no grounds for such a comparison,” Najibullah responded icily — as he enveloped the correspondent’s hand in a bone-crushing handshake.
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