Mother Jones: So Far, Donald Trump Has Negotiated Zero Successful Deals

[Miles Archer]

So Far, Donald Trump Has Negotiated Zero Successful Deals

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/so-far-donald-trump-has-negotiated-zero-successful-deals/



Trump, who has pitched himself as the ultimate negotiator, has focused on ambitious deals as president but has struggled with the fine print….Supporters stress that sometimes Trump’s ambitious efforts do pay off, as with the massive tax cut bill he signed into law late last year.

Going into the North Korea meeting, senior administration officials say, the president has been almost singularly focused on the pageantry of the summit —including the suspenseful roll-out of details. He has not been deeply engaged in briefing materials on North Korea’s nuclear program, said three people with knowledge of the White House efforts….Driven by gut instinct, Trump rarely dives deep as he prepares to meet with foreign counterparts. For the North Korea meeting, insiders say, he is motivated by the idea of scoring a historic deal and is tickled by suggestions he could win a Nobel Peace Prize — especially since Barack Obama won the honor early in his presidency.

FFS. Trump had nothing to do with the tax cut. He was, as Grover Norquist once put it so pungently, merely a human-shaped object with “enough working digits to handle a pen.” The tax cut would have passed if Mickey Mouse had occupied the Oval Office.

So that leaves zero ambitious deals that Trump has negotiated. It’s not for lack of trying, either. He tried to repeal Obamacare. He tried to negotate on DACA. He tried to declare a trade war on China. He tried to bully Mexico and Canada into ripping up NAFTA and starting over. He tried to persuade Russia to deal with him on Syria. He failed in every case because he had no idea what he was doing; what the other side wanted; or how to get there. He just wanted to make a loud threat and then declare victory, and the result has been nothing but a trail of wreckage in his wake. No one in America of either party trusts him any longer, and neither does any country in the world—with the peculiar quasi-exceptions of Israel and Saudi Arabia.¹

[Fred Sanders]

1. What? No one trusts America anymore? Not like a multi-party

international nuclear weapons agreement was ripped up for no reason at all by America...oh, never mind.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Finnally someone post a truth

thank you Mother Jones. Maybe NYC Times or Washington Post could follow suit. Enough of the boot licking. Trump hates your guts anyway. Read the Leslie Stal interview.

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. And if you only count deals that did NOT include russian or american mob money or muscle

he has zero successful deals in his lifetime.

And most of them are unsuccessful regardless of sourcing of funds as when he does a deal he agrees to a list of items for the other side most of which he never abides by and ends up being sued over and over and over.

[Demovictory9]

4. kick

[spanone]

5. He's incapable.

[Solly Mack]

6. so much winning

Snort