The Artifice of the Deal

Goliath Awaits the Slingshot

Perhaps the weirdest and most dangerous assumption about Donald Trump is that he is a master negotiator. There is no evidence for that. Indeed, there is a growing sense that he is, disastrously, quite the opposite. He has one tactic: he bullies. This may work with law firms and universities, but not with Putin or Xi…or Canada, for that matter. It is becoming obvious that bullying is not just the defining attribute of Trump II, it seems the only tool in his shed. And all too often the bullyrag is in pursuit of silly, simplistic fantasies. And all too often, as in the case of his ham-handed tariff regime, the consequences will fall most heavily on the necks of the weekly wage-earners.

The flip side of bullyragging is the flaccid, puling fold. Trump does that, too. He did it Wednesday when it was clear that the world wasn’t buying his tariff regime. This a maneuver familiar on playgrounds everywhere. It has been a hallmark of Trumpery, across the board. He bullies the weak, especially if they have Spanish accents; he folds when challenged. Putin either (a) intimidates him or (b) has something on him. And so, Trump’s “negotiations” over Ukraine have been ridiculous. If he offered Russia the carrot of a strong economic alliance in return for a fair peace deal in Ukraine, it has been rejected. If he believed that Putin would actually negotiate an end to the war, he has been deceived. Russia makes “concessions” that it ignores. When Putin flouts these concessions, Trump does…nothing, except whine: He’s “pissed off” at Putin. Wow. That’s playground language. It leads either to being trampled or to a childish overreaction.

I fear that Trump’s economic failures will lead to an attempt at misdirection. His tough guy stance on China is part of that. But the preferred misdirection of autocrats is saber-rattling. You will see it on display this coming weekend: Trump will try to brazen the Iranians into getting rid of their nuclear program. They won’t. The Iranian people may hate the regime, but they believe in their country’s historic greatness. They believe they should have nukes. And they are hyper-sensitive to the point of silliness when it comes to western attempts at domination—read My Uncle Napoleon, a comic novel in which the title character blames everything, even a squeaky front gate, on the Brits (who were, to the Iranians, the original Great Satan). Trump is already playground-signaling war. There are reports, subsumed by the tariff barrage, that he’s sent flights of B-2 bombers, which can carry bunker buster bombs, to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, close to Iran. The hawk fantasy is that Iran won’t respond if we take out their nuclear facilities. Perhaps. War with Iran would be quick and easy…just like war with Iraq was. The US hasn’t been very successful making war in that neighborhood. A playground bully’s worst nightmare comes when he throws a punch and the would-be wuss victim responds. The wuss could get lucky; Goliath has a blemished track record.

Trump is headed for trouble in other areas. His alleged financial expertise has proven to be a mirage. The world of economics turns out to be a complicated place; it’s hard to bully a market. Basic fact: A bond is a loan. Other countries, especially China, have loaned the US lots of money because we represented the strongest pillar of stability in the world. The tariff regime was instability squared. We were perceived as being less reliable. Other countries began selling US bonds. We were about to take an unexpected bath—unexpected by Trump, who seems to have gone through Wharton on snooze control. As James Carville once said, “When I die, I’d like to come back as the bond market.” (This, after Clinton’s wiser economic advisors posited, accurately, that less federal borrowing would increase the value of bonds. And remember, Clinton not only balanced the budget, but produced surpluses. )

The fools who didn’t believe Trump would try to impose a chainsaw tariff regime—the Wall Street casino folks—are skittering. Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, who was a little too solicitous, and not nearly worried enough, about Trump, is worried now. Low tax shills like Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore posit unlikely exit strategies for Trump. Elon Musk, suicidally outspoken, calls Peter Navarro a moron. This has the advantage of Truth—Navarro was touting bleach and other quackeries during Covid—and carries the renewed promise of internecine warfare and chaos within. Paging Steve Bannon, but one wonders how formidable Bannon will choose to be when he realizes that the 60% of Americans invested in the stock market do not like their life savings messed with on a playground whim.

A strategy of measured strength might actually work with Iran and a sophisticated tariff regime, aimed at shoring up vital national security industries like chips and armaments, might work, too. But Trump is neither measured nor sophisticated. Elon Musk likes to tear down and rebuild it better. That may work with Twitter, but Twitter provides an indulgence, not an essential function: the federal government provides many. Health care is one. The Centers for Disease Control has been stripped and hamstrung, and measles is marching through Texas. Bobby Kennedy Jr., who has reminded us that it’s possible to be useless and dangerous simultaneously, has finally been forced to admit that, uh, maybe parents should vaccinate the kids. (The anti-vaxxers are vexed.)

The Administration won some early victories on the Southern border and against identity politics, but it is rapidly devolving into a mess on all fronts. Trump’s approval ratings dive toward Biden territory. He plays golf instead of honoring the coffins of our soldiers killed in an accident overseas. He “wins” his golf club’s senior tournament, but that seems as real as the illusion of 70 countries allegedly racing to appease him on tariffs. And as tawdry as his minions’ efforts to scrub the Tuskegee Airmen and the Underground Railroad from our history. After 9/11, George W. Bush—scion of a famous family of golfers—had the good sense to abandon the links entirely.

Trump still has his cultish hard core, but independents are heading for the life boats. He also still has the Democrats, who continue pathetic. But he is faltering. His attempts to project strength falter, in a pubescent way. He wants to celebrate his birthday with a $92 million military parade. He tries to intimidate Democrats with talk of a third term, but he looks physically awful, holding onto the rail as he descends the steps of Air Force One; it is possible that he’s declining as inevitably as Biden did—and his fall may be more dramatic. Bullies, in the end, are not remembered for their chesty push, but for their glass jaws. Trump’s opponents may seem pathetic, tossing rocks at a juggernaut, but sooner or later someone is going to figure out how to put one of those rocks in a slingshot and knock the bully down.