President Trump Is a Better Dealbreaker Than Dealmaker

[babylonsister]

Letter from Trump’s Washington
President Trump Is a Better Dealbreaker Than Dealmaker
His blown-up North Korea summit proves it.
By Susan B. Glasser
5:31 P.M.

snip//

Fifteen months into the Trump Presidency, it is finally time to say: we really do know. There are no deals with Trump, and there are increasingly unlikely to be. Not on NAFTA. Not on Middle East peace. Or Obamacare or infrastructure. On tax cuts, the one big deal that did get passed, Republicans in Congress agreed to give their grandchildren’s money to American corporations and wealthy families and put it all on the nation’s credit card; Trump championed it but, by all accounts, played little role in shaping the legislation and did nothing to build consensus with already skeptical Democrats. On North Korea, Trump spontaneously (and over the fears of his advisers) agreed to meet a dictator whose family, for three generations, has made the acquisition of nuclear weapons the centerpiece of its national security; Trump’s negotiating strategy was to demand that the Kim dynasty completely give them up. How surprised are we that it didn’t work out?

No, Trump is a much better dealbreaker than dealmaker. He’s pulled out of the Paris climate accords and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and just a couple weeks ago followed through on his threats to blow up the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, which he long ago labelled “the worst deal ever.” So isn’t it about time to stop buying into Trump as the great dealmaker he ceaselessly proclaims himself to be?

There has always been a disparity between Trump’s self-promotion as the master negotiator and the reality. Beyond the myth he sold on the campaign trail, Trump’s is a history of business deals that often went south—the casinos, the football team, the airline, the multiple bankruptcies. So it’s not just that he misjudged the challenge of making deals as a rookie President, although that seems to be part of it. (Remember when he said that making peace in the Middle East would be “frankly maybe not as difficult as people have thought”?) Trump seems to believe that saying he’s a master negotiator over and over again is the same thing as actually being one. “I’m a great dealmaker,” he said in March. “That’s what I do.” Except that he doesn't. Trump’s luck could change. All the harrumphing and the threatening and the maximalist demands could eventually lead to “beautiful” agreements. There have been moments when it looked like China, or Europe, might back down in the face of his tariff threats. But, broadly speaking, the record so far suggests that Trump’s foreign and domestic rivals are not bedazzled by his negotiating style.

more...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/president-trump-is-a-better-dealbreaker-than-dealmaker

[unblock]

1. indeed, isn't it well past time the media call him a nazi conman as well?

[Wounded Bear]

2. Trump's history is all about reneging on deals...

He is the most litigated and litigous guy out there, because he doesn't care what a contract says, he cheats on them and then depends on the courts to let him get away with it.

It can be no surprise to anyone that he cares nothing for treaties or the contstitution because he cares nothing about anything written on paper. He can't read, so he doesn't bother.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Trumps core competency not dealmaking w powerful counter-parties. Its duping gullible victims - Frum

[PubliusEnigma]

4. It's shafting the contractors writ large.

Trump doesn't pay his debts. He lawyers them away.
And he damned sure doesn't hold up his end of a bargain.