If Donald Trump were a car, he could be immediately disposed of under the lemon laws of most states. Not only is he congenitally incapable of functioning as president, he sold himself to America on the blatantly fraudulent claim that he would be the best deal maker to ever occupy the White House. As it turns out, this guy couldn’t negotiate his way out of a paper bag.
Forget about The Art of the Deal, Trump’s ghostwritten ode to his delusional prowess as a master negotiator. With this one-trick pony, it’s all about the art of the threat. His singular approach to conflict resolution is to fire off a volley of threats at his opponents, like something out of the Godfather movies. The only difference is that most Mafia dons are adept strategists. Trump is not. He simply huffs and puffs and indiscriminately hurls threats with all of the dexterity of an angry drunk denied bar service at last call.
Rarely a day goes by without this president lobbing a new threat at a perceived adversary. He’s threated both North Korea and Iran with economic sanctions and/or nuclear annihilation but is nowhere close to an agreement with either country. He threatened immigrants with an array of Draconian retributions for entering the country illegally and they have continued to storm the borders in record-breaking numbers. He threated Mexico with all sorts of mayhem if didn’t pay for the wall, which it steadfastly refuses to do. After first threatening to close the Mexican border as leverage to get that country to stop the flow of immigrants, he backed away and threatened to slap tariffs on imported goods from our neighbor. Then he dropped the tariff threat in exchange for an agreement that merely codified the status quo. For all of his verbal fire and fury, he got nothing he didn’t already have.
The list, of course, goes on and on. He threatened former FBI director James Comey with releasing tapes that didn’t exist. He threatened to: end the NFL’s tax cuts; impose a tax on European cars; cut off aid to countries he doesn’t like; stop health insurance payments for members of Congress until they pass an Obamacare replacement; pull NBC’s licenses because he doesn’t like their coverage of him. In some cases, he actually made good on his threats, like shutting down the government to get his border wall funding. None of these threats, executed or not, delivered the outcome Trump was looking for.
He does, however, reap a valuable dividend: love and adoration from diehard supporters who worship their action hero president for having the alpha male fortitude to man-up and take on a political system they have grown to despise. The more Trump threatens and bellows, the more his base loves him. Yet, remove the smoke and mirrors from the Trumpian bargaining process and you will find nothing resembling a serious, effective negotiation. Just an agitated old man braying at the moon.
Donald Trump is a cartoonish stereotype of what many people think of when they hear the word “negotiator”, an angry, red-faced, table-pounding blowhard barking demands and hurling insults at the other side. Nothing could be further from the truth.
“The world’s best negotiators,” said Marty Latz, a well-respected conflict resolution trainer, “are also empathetic, as they deeply listen, understand and appreciate their counterparts’ needs and interests without necessarily agreeing with them.” Trump, according to Latz, “has undermined (his) effectiveness for years with his lack of preparation, spontaneous gut-level moves, threats, name-calling, an adversarial win-lose approach, and an extremely aggressive and often mean-spirited tone.”
Of course Trump and his merry band of MAGA voters offer a far different narrative of the all-powerful deal maker, one that reflects illusions created by theater of the mind. Take North Korea, for example. The president would have us believe that his bellicose threats to destroy that country with the “fire and fury” of his nuclear button brought North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to his knees, begging for a negotiated peace. With grandiose visions of the Nobel Peace Prize dancing in his head, Trump has spent the past two years in repeated photo ops with Kim. To hear the Donald tell it, he is now “in love” with Kim and the two are endowed with a “very special relationship” that, of course, ensued directly from Trump’s threats to bomb Kim and his country into oblivion. Just yesterday, Trump made front page news by becoming the first U.S. president to set foot in North Korea.
Yet, we are not an inch closer to a deal ending North Korea’s nuclear capabilities than we were when Trump was threatening to blow the country up. Kim may be a brutal, murdering dictator, but he, unlike our president, is an effective negotiator. Kim knows his opponent and he is giving him what he needs right now: political cover through the illusion of peace. Without making a single concession, Kim has elevated his own status on the world stage. More amazingly, he has transformed his relationship with Trump from one of threatened annihilation to that of a bumbling bromance.
A number of law school professors who specialize in conflict resolution have expressed concern that their students will be influenced by Trump’s approach to deal-making, which is pretty much the antithesis of everything they teach, namely listening, empathy, relationship building and problem solving. Andrea Kupfer Schneider, director of the Dispute Resolution Program at Marquette University Law School, said she emphasizes to her students, that Trump’s objectives in a negotiation are aimed singularly at his political goals, not at the interests of his client, namely the American people.
“Although the president might appear to be engaged in negotiating with a counterpart, his goal does not appear to be changing that particular counterpart’s mind,” she wrote. “Instead, his negotiation behavior is often calculated, not necessarily to result in successful negotiations, but to boost his political ratings.”
Remember those days, when America was truly great, and the president was seen as a role model for students? They have been replaced with a new warning: If you want to be an effective negotiator, pay no attention to Donald Trump. Alas, there is no art in his deals.
Great essay, Bruce.
The most disappointing thing about the Trump reign is that so many Americans are more delusional than he is.