The White House said Monday that President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro shared an awkward handshake last week because Castro was trying to create an “iconic” photo of the two leaders with their arms raised together, something Obama resisted.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama refused the gesture because the re-established relationship hasn’t thawed enough yet.
“I do think that President Castro had in mind a rather iconic photo with President Obama … arms raised together,” Earnest said. “I think President Obama believed that that would imply a whole lot more agreement on some priorities than actually exists.”
The two leaders held a joint news conference, at the end of which Castro tried to get Obama to raise theirs arms up together.
Their “differences of opinion on some really important priorities was also pretty evident from that news conference,” Earnest said, referring to the tense moment when Castro chided Obama for the United States’ criticism of Cuba’s human rights record.
That’s “why the president resisted … the idea of a photograph like the one that President Castro apparently envisioned,” Earnest said.
Earnest took a shot at the Cuban government’s lack of transparency in answering a question about whether Obama knew what Castro was planning.
“I don’t think that President Castro has a standard protocol for the end of news conferences because I don’t think they have news conferences as part of their standard protocol,” he joked.
“I don’t know that anybody was expecting him to do that, but I think the president did observe that for an 84-year-old, President Castro still has some pretty quick reflexes,” he added.
