Quick Take | Trump-Kim talks: the art of no deal
Eighteen months into his mercurial presidency, the Donald Trump who promised to be the ultimate deal broker looks more like the ultimate deal choker
Is the guy who wrote The Art of the Deal really a choke artist?
Trump has fashioned himself as a master negotiator who could win the big deals that eluded his predecessors – forcing China to cut the trade deficit and enticing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons for promises of future aid.
Why would Kim Jong-un trust Trump now he’s ripped up Iran’s nuclear deal?
But nearing the year and a half mark of this unpredictable and hyperkinetic presidency, Trump’s vaunted negotiating skills appear to be boil down to mostly smoke and mirrors. He issues tough-sounding statements, usually on his favourite medium, Twitter, then aides scramble to construct a policy around the tweets, and in the end – well, not so much.
On foreign policy, Trump has shown he is a disrupter willing to tear down the old order. He pulled America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. He withdrew from the Paris climate accord and more recently the Iran nuclear deal. In each case, Trump promised that he could negotiate something better, tougher, with more favourable terms for the US. And in each case, he has negotiated exactly nothing.
Donald Trump proves trade wars with China are good and easy to win
It’s like his promise to get Mexico to pay for that “big, beautiful” border wall. Again, Trump managed to negotiate nada.
