One of the things that has surprised me about Trump, is that I thought he might do deals – that is what he is supposedly famous for, and people keep telling us he is not a politician and he is always open to a deal. His famous book is The Art of the Deal
But he seems incapable of doing what normal people might call deals.
In normal business, my understanding is that a ‘deal’ leaves all sides relatively happy. In Trump world a deal seems to be an agreement in which Trump wins. Or as the co-author of the Art of the Deal remarks:
To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had….
In countless conversations, he made clear to me that he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration. Many of the deals in “The Art of the Deal” were massive failures — among them the casinos he owned and the launch of a league to rival the National Football League — but Trump had me describe each of them as a huge success….
From his perspective, he operated in a jungle full of predators who were forever out to get him, and he did what he must to survive.
Tony Schwartz I wrote ‘The Art of the Deal’ with Trump. His self-sabotage is rooted in his past. Washington Post. 16 May 2017
The above is, of course, opinion from a person who listened to Trump for a long time, but there are plenty of people around, who allege that in their direct experience of him, as a business person, Trump’s idea of a deal was to not pay contractors or suppliers, and threaten them with legal warfare if they complained.
Obviously I don’t know how true any of these assertions are, but it seems characteristic of his visible politics, and he supposedly was involved in over 3,500 law suits before entering politics (see here for for an expanded list) – and some of his frauds like Trump University [2] and the Trump Foundation [3], [4] are quite well known – so its not implausible. It also appears that he took money from his presidential campaign funds and transferred it to his own businesses.
One example of the failure to make a deal is that, despite the Republicans controlling the Senate and the Reps for two years, Trump was unable to get a deal to improve Obamacare. He kept promising that one will turn up in the next fortnight, but it never happens. He could not even get the Republicans to fund his fence with Mexico. He even threatened to close the government over it towards the end of 2017, without any one yielding to the deal. He blamed Democrats, despite having Republican majorities, but he did not, would not, or could not, do a deal with Democrats. He had to take the money from other programmes. I quote from wikipedia to save space:
Trump signed a declaration that the situation at the southern border constitutes a national emergency.[101] This declaration ostensibly made available $600 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund, $2.5 billion from the United States Department of Defense[b] (including anti-drug accounts), $3.6 billion from military construction accounts, for a total of $8 billion when added to the $1.375 billion allocated by Congress.[103] Around February 21–22, it emerged that more than a third of those funds had already been spent for their original purposes, and were therefore unavailable.[104][105]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_wall#cite_note-105
When both the Democrats and Republicans passed a motion to stop the US participating in Saudi Arabia’s war with Yemen, Trump did not deal, he vetoed it.
Some people say he has sabotaged two peace deals with the Taliban – but he has carried out his threat to bomb the shit out of them, apparently dropping more bombs than were used in all Bush Jr’s wars.
But then he has apparently carried out more attacks on Somalia than any other US President – and Somalia is not exactly a threat.
And the US is no longer required to report how many people it has killed through drone warfare – an achievement, but perhaps not a deal.
He did not do a deal in Syria, he just abandoned the US’s Kurdish allies, even while he kept troops there. He did not do a deal with the Iraqi government when they insisted he remove troops, he just kept the troops there.
He did not do a deal with Iran, he just withdrew. He seems to have deliberately destabilised a peace agreement and pushed Iran towards nuclear weapons. He could be looking for a war there. That is one reason he could be stacking the Pentagon.
He did not manage a deal with China. China is still pressing in the South China Seas, and suppressing democracy in Hong Kong. The Trade War with China, which he thought was easily won, is still going, with no obvious advantage to the US – although lots of taxpayers money has been used to prop up big agribusiness. It might be possible to think this is a good thing, but its not a deal.
He failed to get a deal with North Korea, and testing nukes continues.
He did not improve the deal with Paris agreement. He just withdrew.
The usual impression I get from international meetings is that few world leaders think Trump is great at making deals, and they seem to have little evidence he is any good. He appears to spend most of his time at such meetings saying how wonderful he is, how bad everyone else is, and talking with Putin in secret.
I don’t know of anything the US has got from his deals with Putin, but perhaps he benefits a bit.
The only deal I know that seems decent was the economic treaty between Serbia and Kosovo. I don’t know how much he had to do with that. I have read that he claimed he was ending centuries of bloodshed, in a war which ended 20 years ago, and Serbia still does not recognise Kosovo’s right to exist.
The middle East treaty seems to have been about giving Israel what they wanted, abandoning the Palestinians and getting signatures from people who were not at war and shared no common borders.
He seems to have even refused to talk with people in the US who were protesting about black people being shot and beaten up by police. Instead he seems to have encouraged the police violence that started the riots, and praises white guys for shooting bullets and paint pellets at rioters. No deal there. He seems to have decided it was to his political advantage to keep the situation tense, rather than to do a deal.
Likewise rather than deal, he seems to have overridden States’ rights, so as to push higher pollution levels on States that wanted to make their own laws about what was acceptable.
So he does not deal that well.
Most politicians would probably not insist on total subservience and loyalty to themselves. That seems to be Trump’s idea of a deal. Consequently it is not really a surprise that after years of FoxNews’ unswerving support, and the kind of lovey-dovey interviews he can cope with, he threatens to destroy them after they reported he lost.
To most people this could seem like a political attack on free speech – but hey its Trump and he is not a politician.
I don’t know of any deals done with the Democrats, but his 4th July Speech seems to reveal his attitude to deals again. This is traditionally a speech in which Presidents try to draw Americans together. Trump used it to blame the ‘the left’ (which to his audience would mean Democrats) for everything that was wrong. He tried to make them appear Unamerican.
as we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.
Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children…
In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us….
That is why I am deploying federal law enforcement to protect our monuments, arrest the rioters, and prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law….
The violent mayhem we have seen in the streets of cities that are run by liberal Democrats, in every case, is the predictable result of years of extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions….. [and so on and so on]
Remarks by President Trump at South Dakota’s 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration | Keystone, South Dakota. White House 4 July
Yet again, it appears that if you don’t completely admire and agree with Trump, you are evil and his enemy – there is no deal. There is certainly no attempt to understand what is going on.
That seems to be his main political strategy: Don’t deal, and stir up the conditions for civil war, to stop the other side from winning.
And now he won’t go, and personally I worry about what might happen next.
And he is ignoring Covid, so it will get worse and at best make Biden’s job harder. Biden has to deal with the Republicans, misinformation, and the disease, plus handle climate change.
It might be suggested that aiming to win, or stop the other side from winning, all the time, is not compatible with Democracy or dealing. Democracy needs people to be able to win, lose and share with other citizens.
****
For References for the “Trump at war” section see:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/09/donald-trump-defense-contractors
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/28/us-afghanistan-war-bombs-2019
https://ips-dc.org/ending-the-myth-that-trump-is-ending-the-wars/
https://ips-dc.org/remember-trumps-choices-war-walls-and-wall-street/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/22/obama-drones-trump-killings-count/
https://theintercept.com/2020/10/29/trump-yemen-war-civilian-deaths/
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