Latest news with #TheArtOfTheDeal
Straits Times
28-04-2025
- Business
- Straits Times
Trump and the art of ‘dealism'
In US President Donald Trump's mode of thinking, the means — which can be as outlandish or unrealistic as he likes — are justified by the ends, which are always the same: winning. PHOTO: DOUG MILLS/NYTIMES 'I never get too attached to one deal or one approach' – words attributed to a certain Donald J. Trump in 1987. 'For starters, I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first.' You might think it pointless to try to come up with answers to what exactly is going on in the mind of the US President by referring to a book ghostwritten for him some 38 years ago. And yet, perusing through The Art Of The Deal – as many people, friend and foe appear to have been doing of late – is the closest you can get to making sense of Mr Trump's mindset. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Sky News
13-04-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Money and grotesque flattery: The art of doing a deal with Donald Trump is to make sure there is an 'upside' for him
Donald Trump boasts that he is the king of dealmakers. His 1987 ghostwritten bestseller, The Art Of The Deal, turned the New York City nepo babe into a national figure. This in turn, led to him playing the boss in the TV show The Apprentice, and that became his calling card to becoming the president of the United States twice. That, at least, is the view of men who bitterly regret giving Trump his leg-ups to the top. Tony Schwartz, the author who actually wrote The Art Of The Deal, now says it should have been called 'The Sociopath'. After his Non Disclosure Agreement expired, Bill Pruitt, a producer on the first season of The Apprentice, when it was called Meet The Billionaire, confessed "he was not, by any stretch, a successful New York real estate tycoon like we made him out to be". John Miller, the chief marketing officer for NBC who was in charge of crafting Trump's TV image, admits "we created a monster". He says Trump had a string of failures and bankruptcies behind him, but "people thought he would be a good president because I made him seem like a legitimate businessman". Nobody can take Trump's electoral successes away from him. He has been elected president of the United States twice, most recently with a majority of the popular vote. Questions remain about the quality of his deal-making after the economic damage done around the world by his tariff plans, followed rapidly by his partial climbdown from them. He is good at playing the big man for the cameras, but just how good a deal-maker is Donald Trump? And knowing what they know after the past 10 days, how should the 75 nations who Trump says are queuing up "to kiss my ass" negotiate with him? Trump's decision not to implement the big "reciprocal" tariffs he had announced against countries around the world brought relief. His closest advisors fanned out to insist that the rollercoaster ride he forced on the markets was all part of a cunning plan. The president had always planned to go into reverse, they claimed, even though he had repeatedly said he would not in the days following his big tariff reveal in the White House Rose Garden. Trump's tariff climbdown, posted on his Truth Social platform, was one in the eye for the US trade secretary Howard Lubnick, who had being telling the world "there is no postponing, they are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks". Peter Navarro, the "brains" behind the tariff strategy, also had to eat his words but then he is a "moron" and "dumber than a sack of bricks", according to Elon Musk. Navarro laid down the law in The Financial Times hours after the original announcements. "This is not a negotiation," he wrote then. 1:27 After Trump's retreat, he went on TV to bluster: "This is one of the greatest days in American economic history we have had. I think we're going to call it the 'art of the reciprocal trade deal'. I'll tell ya, all the nervous Nellies on Wall Street who try to undermine us consistently underestimate the power of the president to negotiate." Flanked by an uneasy-looking treasury secretary Scott Bessent, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, chided, "many of you in the media clearly missed The Art Of The Deal". She claimed the president's ploys had isolated China and left the rest of the world looking for deals with the US, "and they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them". Leavitt seemed to be reaching for one of the tactics outlined in The Art Of The Deal - go over the top and ask for too much, so that when you negotiate down, you are still the winner. By this logic, really big tariffs against individual major exporters to the US have been shelved, but the across-the-board 10% tariff has been left in place. This structural shift is vital to true believers in Trump's plan to make Americans pay tax through what they buy rather than their earnings. The trouble is that Trump blinked first and seemed to suggest that tariff threats were only a means to the end of a new ideal of "free trade". Just as with his Ukraine plans, he made concessions in advance to the people he is negotiating against - President Putin in the case of his "peace plan" - without getting anything in return. The markets, especially government bond markets, have shown that this president does not have the muscle to impose his will regardless. The trading partners queuing for talks may be prepared to flatter, but they will be looking to negotiate down from the lower baseline he has conceded. For example, the UK and the European Union will be looking for lower tariffs against their cars, steel and iron, which the US needs and which the US rustbelt will be unable to replace any time soon. Trump and his supporters are now trying to save face by suggesting that his moves have all really been about confronting China. At the time of writing, tariffs against the US's only real match in terms of trade and military power have now reached an incredible 145%. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has reciprocated but kept well below the American level. Having been threatened by the US, the rest of the world is unlikely to join America in a trade war against China. It is not their problem. Trump has shown that nearby countries such as Vietnam have nothing to gain from him. Instead, he has handed China the chance to pose as the upholder of international trade rules, in spite of its oppressive and antidemocratic policies. China has cut back its trade dependency on the US considerably in recent years, and its government is not accountable to voters. Donald Trump may find that the US does not have the leverage against China that it thinks it does. Ultimately, Trump is after a one-on-one big men meeting with President Xi. The danger must be that in order to pose as a deal-maker, he once again makes concessions he should not, such as selling out Taiwan. The supine, Republican-dominated US Congress has chosen not to contest Trump's unrestrained exercise of executive power, however delusional and incompetent it may be. He was only forced to reverse his main tariff moves because of market forces beyond his control. He had destabilised the whole US economy. Lots of his rich allies were losing money themselves. They will have made most of it back in the temporary stock market surge. Democrats are now demanding an inquiry into possible insider trading by Trump and his associates - although they are unlikely to get very far in Trump's America. That perhaps is the key to doing a deal with Donald Trump - as the British government appear to have concluded. Normal rules of statecraft or probity do not apply. He does not care about the important matters at stake or even understand them. They are peripheral to the deal he wants to make. The art is to make sure there is an "upside" for him personally in any deal. Money and grotesque flattery are both acceptable forms of tribute to this president.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Karoline Leavitt Puts 'Laughable' Spin On Trump Tariffs Reversal, Sparks Mockery Online
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's spin on President Donald Trump's decision to pause/reverse his controversial tariffs drew mockery on social media. Leavitt chided reporters on Wednesday when she appeared to argue that Trump's decision to roll back most of the tariffs he announced last week — following days of sliding stock markets, fears of a global recession and criticism from even his most loyal backers — was actually part of his plan all along. That's despite Trump saying it was because he 'thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line' and 'were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.' With an apparent nod to Trump's 1980s memoir-business advice book 'The Art Of The Deal,' Leavitt said: 'Many of you in the media clearly missed the art of the deal, you clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here. You try to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China when in fact we've seen the opposite of that. The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets, they need our consumers and they need this president in the Oval Office to talk to them.' Trump has also shown 'great courage,' she claimed, with his newly-increased tariff of 125% on Chinese imports. Watch here: Critics called B.S. on the explanation, though. Trump Makes Crassest Of Claims About Countries Responding To His Tariffs Side-By-Side Photos Of Trump And Biden Oval Office Goes Wildly Viral Trump's New Hot Take On His Tariffs Sparks 1 Hell Of An Eye Roll Online
New European
14-02-2025
- Politics
- New European
The president's brain is missing… again
The worst fears of all of those invested in a future for Ukraine as a free, democratic nation seem close to realisation in the first month of Donald Trump's presidency. Not only is Trump pushing for a peace deal, he seems willing to cut Ukraine out of the talks – negotiating directly with Putin by phone, and offering to meet with him in person – and to set conditions for the deal that seem to only benefit Russia's dictator. Though Trump, his vice president JD Vance, and secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have somewhat walked back some of what was originally promised, the administration initially ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine, along with any possibility of US troops being present in Ukraine to enforce a ceasefire. This appeared to be a staggering blunder for a president whose autobiography was titled The Art Of The Deal. Even if the US had no intention of fast-tracking Kyiv into NATO or sending its soldiers, these would have been useful as negotiating chips in peace talks – the idea being that for each of them the US dropped, Russia would have to concede something in return. Vance and Hegseth have since unconvincingly declared that nothing is off the table, but Putin is no fool. He knows now that there is very little sincerity or seriousness behind all of the propositions that the US gave away for free. He will offer up almost nothing in exchange as a result. America has blindsided Ukraine, blindsided its allies, and launched into an accelerated peace talks process that seems set to hand Vladimir Putin a victory. The question in such situations becomes a simple one: why? The honest answer is that absolutely no-one knows for sure, and anyone who claims otherwise should be treated with distrust. Whether in Washington DC or Europe, securocrats are struggling to build a coherent rationale for Trump's actions – but here are some of the explanations they offer to try to make some sense of what is otherwise simply a mess. The first is an explanation that most reject, even if it is popular online: the most extreme versions of 'Russia collusion' don't really make sense to many. Trump and his supporters like to complain about the media's 'Russia hoax', but the reality is more complex. There is no shortage of solid evidence that Russia intervened in the 2016 election – most notably by hacking the Democratic National Committee and Clinton aide John Podesta – to help Donald Trump. It is also a matter of public record that Trump publicly encouraged such hacking efforts, from on stage. But the idea of there being deeper 'collusion' between the campaign and the Russian state was largely disproved, even if there were some improper contacts in place. The Disney movie version of Trump simply being an agent of the Russian state, or deliberately working to advantage it beyond the USA itself, is a conspiracy theory. But ruling that out doesn't mean that Trump isn't easily exploited by Russia, or will serve its interests even if not in a nakedly self-serving or corrupt way. One explanation offered by Trump watchers is to look at what Trump regards as his other foreign policy achievements. Trump is a man who likes his reputation as a dealmaker, and who likes ceremony and occasion around deals. He doesn't like detail and doesn't bother to learn any of it – barely wanting a one-page version of world events before weighing in. As a result, in his first term Donald Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, essentially for no reason and secured nothing in return. Similarly, he met with Kim Jong-un and gave him a great photo op, but didn't get anything meaningful in exchange for that either. Usually these big moments are the culmination of a deal that has been months in the works. Trump likes those ceremonies and the pomp, but doesn't seem to understand the difference between set pieces that actually mark something, and the cargo-cult version of them he attends. Through this lens, Trump is looking for accomplishment with little actually driving it. He wants to end the Gaza crisis and free the hostages, but has virtually no interest in doing the hard yards of learning the politics involved. He wants to end the Ukraine war, and doing that rapidly is of much more interest to him than doing it on terms that benefits the US and its allies. He can avoid the complications of this by simply not learning about them. Then there is the theory that Trump is seeing what he, or the US, might financially gain from peace. He believes that there should be a direct monetary reward if he deigns to help out his allies. Even though Trump is seemingly offering help to Ukraine by suggesting that the US might offer Ukraine air support to enforce a ceasefire, it is only if America can get access to rare-earth metals in return. And then there is the idea of disengagement, whatever the cost. One of Trump's most popular policy positions with his voters – and with Americans more broadly – is withdrawing the US from its obligations around the world. Americans are sick of 'foreign wars', feel that they are paying for the security of the rest of the world (and don't think they see the benefits of that), and absolutely don't want to see US troops fighting or dying overseas. Even the experts are just guessing at which of these factors are foremost in Trump's mind.. It is not clear that even Trump's cabinet or inner circle knows what the president is actually thinking – Hegseth had to go out and u-turn his own prepared remarks during this week's summit. If the administration doesn't know its own policy day-to-day, how could any outsider be sure? But some combination of these three factors seems the likeliest: Trump doesn't want the US involved in international conflicts, he wants some big and flashy foreign policy achievements, and he wants financial advantage for the USA. Trump seems to see an opportunity for all three in ending the conflict caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine – and either doesn't know, or simply doesn't care, about the potential cost to Ukraine, or the freedom and safety of its people.
Yahoo
04-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump maximises leverage over Iran by squeezing where it hurts most
Leverage is the most important thing in negotiations, Donald Trump said in his book The Art Of The Deal. "Don't make deals without it." The US president has just maximised his leverage over Iran's government, squeezing it where it hurts most. Oil sales. The move will hurt Iran's economy, already in deep trouble, and could lead to more social unrest. The edict Mr Trump signed on Tuesday marks a return to the maximum pressure policies of his first administration that were relaxed by his successors. allowed Iran to export more than $50bn of oil a year. Trump is reversing that. He will target foreign ports and refineries, especially those in that are currently handling Iranian oil. Iran may find there is nowhere left for it to sell its oil. Read more: That could be devastating for the ayatollahs and their government. Strapped by crippling sanctions, Iranians desperately need the hard currency receipts generated by oil sales. But the impact does not stop there. The global price of oil has already jumped on the news. This spells more trouble for the government in Tehran. Higher fuel prices add to the pain of Iran's poor. That increases the chances of social unrest. Protests led by Iranian women following the death of a more than two years ago were crushed with force but they weakened the government's standing. If the rural poor take to the streets, protesting against higher fuel and food prices on top of already crippling inflation, broader and more wide-ranging unrest could ensue. This all puts Iran's government in a bind. President Trump says he wants a deal with Iran. Its people are amazing, he says, and the country has huge potential. On one condition. It cannot have a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes but since Mr Trump reneged on the first Iranian nuclear deal it has been enriching uranium to levels that can have no civilian purpose. Its government is facing a choice. Enter talks with the US from a position of weakness. Or change its nuclear doctrine and accelerate its pursuit of the bomb. The latter path is fraught with danger. Israeli intelligence has infiltrated and penetrated Iran. It is likely to detect any clandestine dash to go the final mile and produce a nuclear weapon. Read more from Sky News: Israel is likely then to attack Iran and Mr Trump has said without a deal the US is likely to support it. Iran has never been more exposed. Over the last year it has watched its network of allies and proxies done mortal damage by Israel. In the latest round of fighting between the two countries, Israel is thought to have destroyed much of Iran's air defences. But it has other means of self-defence. Not least attacking neighbours across the gulf and their vulnerable energy infrastructure. That raises the spectre once more of an escalating war across the Middle East. Iran's diplomats are sounding defiant. Attacking its nuclear facilities ", its foreign minister Abbas Aragchi told Sky News last month. It would lead, he said, to a "very bad disaster" for the region. Iran's leaders are in a tight spot. Mr Trump seems determined to increase their pain. He hopes that could increase the chances of a deal on his terms. Others fear it makes a devastating regional conflict more likely. The repercussions of a conflict across the Persian Gulf would be felt around the world.
