Donald Trump's Awkward NATO Summit 2018 Photo

Submission 13,375

About

Donald Trump's Awkward NATO Summit 2018 Photo refers to a viral photograph of United States President Donald Trump looking in the opposite direction of his fellow North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members at the 2018 NATO summit.

Origin

On July 11th, 2018, Getty photographer Sean Gallup published a photograph of the leaders at the 2018 NATO summit in Berlin, Germany. The photograph features world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May and more, looking to their left while standing stage a podium. President Trump, however, is looking to his right in the picture, the only one in the photograph to look in that direction (shown below).

Spread

That day, people shared the image online, commenting that the photograph was a metaphorical representation of the summit, at which President Trump found himself at odds with his fellow leaders.^[9] Twitter ^[1] user @MrKenShabby tweeted, "This is an absolutely perfect picture." The post (shown below, left) received more than 5,300 retweets and 17,000 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter^[2] user @adamcbest explained the metaphor further. They wrote, "This photo is the perfect metaphor. Donald Trump clearly sees the world the wrong way when compared to other NATO leaders. Is it because he’s a moron, because Putin tells him to or a mixture of both?" Within 24 hours the post (shown below, center) received more than 650 retweets and 1,400 likes.

That day, Stephen Colbert tweeted^[3] "My condolences to @realdonaldtrump for his crushing defeat in the first round of international Simon Says." The post (shown below, right) received more than 11,000 retweets and 64,000 likes in 24 hours.

The following day, Redditor ^[4] bobby104402 posted a photoshopped version of the image featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump's small hands and an elongated tie. The post (shown below) received more than 16,000 points (87% upvoted) and 1,600 comments in six hours.

Several media outlets covered the photograph, including Newsweek,^[5] QZ,^[6] Elite Daily,^[7] The Daily Dot ^[8] and more.