Trump’s Art Of The No Deal

Trump promised to be America's dealmaker in chief, touting his “extraordinary” ability to negotiate. But so far – whether he's dealing with foreign governments or with Congress – Trump has shown that he can't make a deal. Here's the list:

1. No deal with North Korea. Following his June 12 summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump declared on Twitter that “there is no longer a nuclear threat” from North Korea. But in fact, there's no deal. Trump gave Kim what Kim wanted – a photo op showing an American president granting North Korea co-equal status, and the cancellation of joint military exercises with South Korea. Yet Kim conceded nothing on weapons and missile programs. In fact, recent satellite imagery shows the North is actually improving its nuclear capability. Instead of surrendering its nuclear stockpile, American intelligence officials say North Korea is considering ways to conceal it at secret production facilities. A new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize.

2. No deal on Nafta. Mexico and Canada insist they won't budge.

3. No deal with China on trade. In November, Trump lavished praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping of China after a one-on-one meeting in Beijing, during which Xi offered no concrete concession on trade. Now, we're on the brink of a trade war with China, which is retaliating against U.S. tariffs.

4. No deal on steel and aluminum imports. Europe has imposed retaliatory tariffs on several products exported from the U.S. to Europe, including motorcycles (inducing Harley-Davidson to announce it's moving some production to Europe), and causing GM to claim American jobs will suffer as a result.

5. No deal on the Qatar blockade.

6. No deal on Syria.

7. No deal on Russia. Even though Trump and Putin will soon meet, Trump has given away his bargaining leverage: Over the past few weeks he's called for Russia to be readmitted to the Group of 7 industrial powers, suggested it has a legitimate claim to Crimea because many Russian speakers live there, and continued to sow doubts about whether Moscow meddled in the 2016 presidential election — or if it did, whether the sabotage actually benefited Hillary Clinton.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
No tags for this post.

Related posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *