So, what’s the latest on body language in the White House? Many have been enjoying Trump’s “hands-on” approach to foreign leaders. There was the infamous cuddle that Theresa May received (anyone else think that she looked as though she was about to be bundled into the back of a moving van?). Then there were all those arm pumping/limb yanking/hand clasping displays of alpha-handshaking that Trump bestowed upon male leaders.
However, last week, Trump produced a curiously subdued handshake with Irish prime minister Enda Kenny. Trump was also forced to stand with a face like a crumbling urinal cake, while Kenny spoke warmly of St Patrick “The patron saint of immigrants”.
Later, when Trump, using his rumoured second language, English, blathered about wiretapping, German chancellor Angela Merkel could barely suppress a contemptuous grimace. Merkel didn’t get a lovely cuddle, she was even denied an Oval Office handshake, to which she responded with the serene expression of a mother refusing to be provoked by her armpit-farting teenager. All this during just one week – dare we dream that the right kind of body language is finally winning the silent battle of the words in the White House?
