Eugene B Kogan. Negotiation Journal. Volume 35, Issue 1. January 2019.
This article distills President Donald Trump’s approach to negotiation—drawing mainly on his own written and public pronouncements. In preparing this article, I reviewed ten books that Trump co‐authored as well as four books about him. In addition, I have watched more than seventy of his public appearances from 1980 to the present and have been monitoring his Twitter feed since April 2018.
Other authors have focused on selected elements of Trump’s deal‐making approach (Malhotra and Moore; Irwin; Allen; Hendrix), and I build on these efforts to more comprehensively flesh out his negotiation worldview. A debate about his prowess as a negotiator has already begun, with some arguing in favor of his effectiveness (Ross; McRoberts; Falkenberg and Wilks; Napolitano; Solloway), and others assessing his bargaining skills to be highly overrated (Bordone; Malhotra and Moore; Caminiti; Irwin; Kruse; Latz). I acknowledge these disagreements, but do not take sides. About one point, there is little contention, and it provides the impetus for this case analysis: Trump’s negotiating behavior is having a significant impact on the United States and international security. Thus, a comprehensive synthesis of Trump’s thinking on this subject can be helpful to policymakers, scholars, and citizens.
In this article, I argue that Trump is a coercive negotiator: spotting and exploiting vulnerability is his trade; leverage and bravado are his tools. He first assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing side; he then employs all levers of power to threaten those vulnerabilities, while using bravado to play up the advantages of making an agreement on his terms. This way, he presents a stark structured choice to his interlocators, leaving them the least maneuvering space.
In the following pages, I identify Trump’s four overarching behavior patterns (I refer to them as “roles”): observer, performer, controller, and disrupter—and examine how they interact to shape his deal‐making style. I then use the ongoing nuclear negotiations with North Korea to illustrate how these roles manifest themselves, and conclude by outlining an agenda for further research.
Four Dominant Roles
From a detailed review of Trump’s writings and public pronouncements before, during, and after the 2016 presidential campaign, I have identified four dominant roles that Trump has taken on in his business and now political careers. Taken together, the following four categories provide an explanatory and predictive framework for analyzing Trump’s often‐unscripted pronouncements and behavior.
First, Trump is an observer: he begins a negotiation with an assessment of his counterparts’ strengths and vulnerabilities. Second, he is a performer: he is perennially aware of—and seeks—media attention in order to use publicity to maximize his leverage in a negotiation. Third, he is a controller: his top‐down leadership style aims for bureaucracy‐free efficiency. Finally, he is a disrupter: gut‐driven, action‐oriented, and risk‐tolerant, he draws strength from adversity.
Trump as Observer
Scholars have long emphasized the importance of preparation before one negotiates (e.g., Fisher, Ury, and Patton), with some calling it “the cornerstone of successful negotiation” (Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello: 28). Scholars have also suggested that “joint fact‐finding” among the negotiating parties can facilitate a consensual conflict resolution process (Susskind). But using observation to facilitate a mutual gains approach is not what Donald Trump has in mind when he prepares for a negotiation. Speaking on a television talk show in 2009, he emphatically told the audience that one key to a successful negotiation is “to be able to size up your opponent” (Trump).
This advice reflects Trump’s belief that he is a keen interpersonal observer, unusually effective in assessing the power resources of his counterparts (Ferguson). He prepares for a negotiation by learning as much as possible about the other side’s strengths and vulnerabilities. “Know thy adversary” may be a well‐accepted bargaining principle (e.g., Raiffa), but Trump’s emphasis on this aspect of negotiation preparation is notable: “You’ve got to know what the other side wants and where they’re coming from,” he wrote in Why We Want You to Be Rich (Trump and Kiyosaki: 148). And, Trump advised his earlier television audience regarding potential negotiation interlocutors, “when they’re on the other side of the table, that’s what they are—they are an opponent” (Trump, emphasis added). Competition is central to Trump’s conception of the negotiation process.
Negotiation scholars recognize the strategic value of empathy—the ability to put oneself into other people’s shoes to make them feel as if you understand (without necessarily agreeing with) their point of view (e.g., Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello). At first glance, Trump appears to concur: “Frequently, people are so involved in trying to get what they want,” he wrote in Trump 101, “that they ignore other people’s needs and objectives and don’t successfully connect” (Trump: 50).
Understanding one’s counterpart’s fundamental “interests” as opposed to their publicly stated “positions” in order to negotiate a deal based on achievement of mutual gains (Fisher, Ury, and Patton; Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello) is critical to cooperative negotiation approaches (e.g., integrative, interest‐based, principled, mutual‐gains). But Trump’s orientation is distinctly more coercive: “Learn your adversary’s strengths and weaknesses: Find out who your adversaries are, what resources they have, who is backing them, how much they want, why they want it, how much they will settle for, and how much they will pay or insist on receiving” (Trump: 62). Trump does not empathize with his opponents; he sizes them up.
Trump as Performer
As much as Trump watches others, he is aware of being watched: “life is a performance art,” he wrote Think Like a Champion. “Understand that as a performer, you have a responsibility to your audience to perform to the best of your ability” (Trump: 159). Indeed, as he walked down the stairs of the U.S. Capitol on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2017, President‐elect Trump paused to look directly into the camera, prompting television commentator George Stephanopoulos to exclaim: “He smiles for the camera! He is always aware … [that] the cameras are every step of the way” (ABC News).
As performer, Trump has exaggerated commonly used negotiation approaches to maximize his dominance over his counterparts. For example, the importance of knowing one’s alternatives has received significant attention in the negotiation literature (e.g., Fisher, Ury, and Patton), and Trump, during the 2016 presidential campaign, likewise advocated having a viable “walk‐away” option (Trump). But Trump the performer has taken it a few steps further, advising negotiators to feign disinterest to determine just how desperate the other party is to strike a deal. “To speed up negotiations, be indifferent. That way you’ll find out if the other side is eager to proceed,” he wrote (Trump: 168).
In The Art of the Deal he described how he employed this tactic when making the case to the New Jersey licensing commission that he should be granted a casino license. He wrote: “Much as I wanted to build a great casino on the great site I’d assembled, I said, I had a very successful real estate business in New York and I was more than willing to walk away from Atlantic City if the regulatory process proved to be too difficult or too time‐consuming” (Trump: 207).
In addition to flaunting his ability and willingness to “walk away,” Trump the performer also anchors high—i.e., makes the first move and asks for a maximum possible value to get the most out of the negotiation. “My style of deal‐making is quite simple and straightforward. I aim very high, and then I just keep pushing and pushing and pushing to get what I’m after. Sometimes I settle for less than I sought, but in most cases I still end up with what I want” (Trump: 45). For example, “I went in and asked for the world—for an unprecedented tax abatement—on the assumption that even if I got cut back, the break might still be sufficient,” Trump wrote, describing one of his negotiations with the New York City government (Trump: 131).
Trump as Controller
Trump the controller seeks to be in charge of both decision making and information. Indeed, he explained in The Art of the Deal, “One of the keys to thinking big is total focus. I think of it almost as a controlled neurosis, which is a quality I’ve noticed in many highly successful entrepreneurs. They’re obsessive, they’re driven, they’re single‐minded and sometimes they’re almost maniacal, but it’s all channeled into their work” (Trump: 48).
Top‐down decision making gives Trump the feeling of power: “As soon as you take responsibility for all that you touch, the power is in your hands to make it extraordinary. For me, having that sense of control has been a catalyst for success” (Trump and Kiyosaki: 26). His penchant for efficient, top‐down decision making is illustrated in this passage from The Art of the Deal: “With so many regulators and regulations to satisfy, we [Trump Organization] had one major advantage: the fact that we are not a bureaucracy. In most large public corporations, getting an answer to a question requires going through seven layers of executives, most of whom are superfluous in the first place. In our organization, anyone with a question could bring it directly to me and get an answer immediately. That’s precisely why I’ve been able to act so much faster than my competitors on so many deals” (Trump: 209). “Leadership is not a group effort,” Trump the controller wrote, offering a pithy summary of his management philosophy, “If you’re in charge, then be in charge” (Trump: 101).
Trump as Disrupter
Trump’s fighting style has received considerable attention: “That’s just my makeup,” he explained in The Art of the Deal. “I fight when I feel I’m getting screwed, even if it’s costly and difficult and highly risky” (Trump: 236). “I love fighting … battles,” Trump said recently (McGraw).
Trump the disrupter is instinct‐driven. “Listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper” (Trump: 28). He repeated this advice ten years later. “The chosen few,” he wrote, “can just go with their gut” (Trump: 193). Trump the disrupter is also action‐oriented: “If you’re going to achieve anything, you have to take action” (Trump University Undated).
Most importantly, Trump the disrupter manages ambiguity—seeking to minimize it for himself and maximize it for others. He doesn’t like surprises: “Anticipating and preparing for problems will save you time and resources and stop surprises that could cost you a ton,” he advised in Trump 101 (Trump: 19; also see Cook and Dawsey).
But ambiguity has been an enduring part of Trump’s negotiation toolkit from his early days as a businessman to the present day as occupant of the Oval Office. Before running for president he wrote, “never let anyone know exactly where you’re coming from. Knowledge is power, so keep as much of it to yourself as possible” (Trump and Kiyosaki: 148). “I want to be unpredictable,” Trump told the audience at one of his presidential campaign rallies (Trump). Indeed, he stressed in a campaign foreign policy speech that “we must as a nation be more unpredictable” (Trump, emphasis added). For example, in a pre‐presidential television interview, he refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons—not for any strategic reasons, but because this would violate one of his core negotiation precepts: “You don’t want to say ‘take everything off the table’ because you’re a bad negotiator if you say that. … Look, nuclear should be off the table, but would there be a time when it could be used? Possibly. … I would never take any of my cards off the table” (Trump). Finally, upon becoming president, Trump said in a television interview: “I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is” (Trump). “Unpredictability has become the new normal,” wrote one academic commentator, summing up the Trump approach to international affairs (Roberts; also see Jamieson and Taussig).
Donald Trump’s Negotiation Approach
An analysis of Trump’s negotiation behavior reveals how he embodies each of these four roles. His first preference is to negotiate with those who have few or no options, giving him both immediate maximum leverage (controller) as well as the opportunity to draw a sharp contrast between the other party’s eagerness to negotiate and his magnanimity in doing so given his many purportedly superior options (performer). If his counterparts do have options, he uses threats to denigrate the value of these alternatives, thus presenting them with a structured choice: either accept his offer (which, as performer, he promotes with his typical bravado), or face his unpredictable ire (disrupter). Accepting Trump’s offer often puts the other parties in his debt, and he can be expected to threaten retribution if they do not reciprocate (disrupter).
Choose Counterparts Who Have Few or No Options
“I love losers,” Trump reportedly told a business expo conference audience, “because they make me feel so good [about myself]” (Johnston: 22). Trump the controller sees options as key to his leverage over an opponent, and negotiating with “losers” confers maximum advantage. Leverage, after all, is his principal tool: “don’t make deals without it,” he advises in The Art of the Deal (Trump: 209). (See also Richard Shell’s review essay in this issue. Shell also finds leverage to be Trump’s primary negotiation tool.) At the same time, Trump cultivates his own alternatives: “Don’t be afraid to pursue multiple options,” he advises in one of his books. “If one thing doesn’t work out, you’ve got back‐up options” (Trump: 68; also see Trump). The fewer options the other parties have, the more leverage Trump the controller enjoys.
As a negotiator who considers leverage as his principal tool, Trump the controller also prefers bilateral negotiations to multilateral ones. “Reality is not bilateral,” political scientist Richard Neustadt observed, but that is the reality that Trump the controller seeks to present to his counterparts in order to most effectively shape their behavior. As Jeswald Salacuse observed, “it is generally in the interest of the strong to maintain the bilateral framework to keep itself and its weaker adversary enclosed in a dyadic mold.” (The importance of the bilateral negotiation framework will become clearer when I discuss Trump’s structured choice tactic later in this essay.)
Negotiations with counterparts who have limited alternatives offer Trump the performer a captive audience to which he can advertise the advantages of making a deal on his terms. For example, The Art of the Deal describes Trump’s efforts to negotiate zoning rights for his Upper West Side project in the 1970s and 1980s. “The city was on the verge of bankruptcy,” Trump the disrupter observed, focusing in on his counterpart’s key vulnerability. He then shifted into his performer role: “but what I saw was a superb location” (Trump: 120). And, writing in The Art of the Deal, Trump described the virtues of the location of the Commodore Hotel, his first major deal in New York City: “Unless the city literally died, millions of affluent people were going to keep passing by this location every day” (Trump: 120-121).
Negotiations with counterparts who have few or no options—and are, thus, eager to negotiate—also give Trump the performer opportunities to showcase his indifference and his concomitant willingness to walk away from the deal. “I’d heard they wanted one very badly,” he writes in The Art of the Deal about the Hyatt owners’ desire to build a hotel in New York (Trump: 126). As a result, he concludes in another book, “it was only the depressed state of New York and the country in general that allowed me to get what I wanted—the best deal possible” (Trump: 164).
Denigrate Counterpart’s Best Alternative
Trump relentlessly seeks to enhance his own leverage by weakening his counterpart’s “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA) (Fisher, Ury, and Patton). When he is not in a position to negotiate with a “loser,” Trump will use both disruption and performance to make his interlocutor feel like one. “I’m the first to admit that I am very competitive and that I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win,” he wrote in The Art of the Deal. Indeed, he continued, “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition” (Trump: 108). For example, recalling how he sought to persuade New York politicians to build a convention center on his site, Trump wrote that he “told anyone who would listen how great my site was, and how horrible the alternatives were” (Trump: 111-112).
Use Generosity as Leverage
Trump also uses generosity, particularly compliments, to enhance his leverage. “I know that no matter how tough somebody is, he or she will always remember support you’ve given or a favor you might have done in the past,” he wrote in one of his books (Trump: 39).
To succeed in negotiations, Trump explains in The Art of the Deal, “you have to convince the other guy it’s in his interest to make the deal” (Trump: 53-54). One way in which Trump the performer accomplishes this is what may be termed the “uninvited gift” technique, essentially saying “I’m treating you in a special way, so you owe me.” For example, one reporter described a conversation with Trump regarding estimates of his wealth: “Trump … had compiled his own unaudited appraisal, one he was willing to share along with the amusing caveat ‘I’ve never shown this to a reporter before'” (Singer). Trump’s seemingly accidental aside was likely purposefully placed to make the listener feel privileged and indebted for such an exclusive tidbit, an instance of spontaneous generosity that would later call for “loyalty.”
If debts are not repaid—that is, if “loyalty” is not shown -Trump the disrupter will seek “retribution,” as he told television talk show host Jay Leno (Trump and Leno). As he recounted to a journalist: “there were people that I really helped in business, when things were very good, in the 1980s, and when my company was going good—and they did not lift a finger to help me when I needed it, and there were a couple of them that could’ve very easily helped me. Now, I have the opportunity to do a number on those people, and … I am having a lot of fun with the opportunity” (Trump).
Deal with the Boss
Trump’s preference for centralized leadership informs his negotiation approach: “If you’re going to make a deal of any significance,” he wrote in The Art of the Deal, “you have to go to the top” (Trump: 127). Trump the controller seeks to lead the negotiation and resents being hobbled by the “behind‐the‐table” dynamics: “When you have people snipping [sic] at your heels during a negotiation,” he wrote on Twitter, “it will only take longer to make a deal, and the deal will never be as good as it could have been with unity” (Trump).
Be Prepared to Fight
Trump the disrupter maintains dominance by threatening to fight if, as he puts it ambiguously, he is treated “unfairly.” Trump said at the 2012 National Achievers Congress: “One of the things you should do in terms of success: If somebody hits you, you’ve got to hit’ em back five times harder than they ever thought possible. You’ve got to get even … this is so important … because if they do that [attack] to you, you have to leave a telltale sign that they just can’t take advantage of you. It’s not so much for the person [who attacked you], which does make you feel good. … But other people watch and you know they say, ‘Well, let’s leave Trump alone,’ or … ‘Doris, let’s leave her alone. They fight too hard'” (Corn).
Present the Other Party with a Structured Choice
The structured choice tactic is central to Trump’s coercive negotiation approach. In his use, the method has the following logic: choose my proposal, which I have promoted with bravado or, being less desperate for the deal than you are, I will walk away, ominously suggesting that significant adverse consequences could follow. “Leverage,” Trump notes in The Art of the Deal, “often requires imagination, and salesmanship” (Trump: 53-54). The structured choice approach is powerful because Trump essentially narrows down the other party’s choice set to only two options: one with a clear incentive and the other with an unpredictable (potentially, devastating) threat.
Consider, for example, President Trump’s television interview comment about the U.S. relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin: “Getting along with President Putin … is a positive, not a negative. Now, … if that doesn’t work out, I’ll be the worst enemy he’s ever had. … I’ll be his worst nightmare. But I don’t think it will be that way. I actually think we’ll have a good relationship” (CNBC 2018a). As presidential candidate, he made a similar comment about House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan: “I’m sure I’m going to get along great with him … and if I don’t, he’s going to have to pay a big price” (Steinhauer 2016).
Scholars have discussed the structured choice tactic in the context of nuclear negotiations with Iran and North Korea (Litwak; see also Sebenius), and this concept draws on the theme of threats, incentives, and application of power in coercive diplomacy (e.g., Schelling; Art). Furthermore, Trump’s use of threats and intimidation fits squarely in the area of “hard bargaining” tactics (Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello; see also Fisher, Ury, and Patton). In the context of labor negotiations, scholars have also written about the “unrestrained forcing strategy,” whose elements could include, for example, a strike, a lockout, or a firing of union organizers (Walton, Cutcher‐Gershenfeld, and McKersie).
Howard Stevenson and Mihnea Moldoveanu’s work on predictability helps explain the power of structured choice. “People will go mad,” they wrote, “if punishment and reward are doled out randomly and if they cannot know in advance whether a given outcome will be a win or a loss.” “When the future is unknown, an action feels like a choice between lotteries,” Stevenson points out. Therefore, he explained, “power comes from making life predictable for other people” (Stevenson). As people seek to reduce “ambiguity and uncertainty … when choosing between alternative courses of action with unknown consequences,” Stevenson argued, they are likely to “choose a course of action with fewer possible outcomes over a course of action with more possible outcomes; and … a course of action for which the possible outcomes are fully defined, over a course of action for which the outcomes are not fully defined” (Stevenson: 263). Trump’s use of the structured choice tactic takes advantage of this propensity to avoid ambiguity.
Trump’s structured choice is powerful for two reasons. First, it narrows down the other party’s choice set to only two options—seemingly making his or her decision easier. Second, it juxtaposes the clarity of one choice, the one Trump promotes with bravado and a nuanced sense of the interlocutor’s vulnerabilities, with the ambiguity of the alternative, the one Trump threatens to employ if the deal is not reached on his terms. In sum, Trump’s structured choice is a drastic one that presents one option as vastly superior to the other, thus shaping the other party’s decision space, especially if he or she does not have a viable alternative.
Trump and Nuclear Negotiations with North Korea
Some of the most consequential negotiations that Donald Trump has undertaken as president have been the nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea. I argue here that the four Trump roles that I have identified above—observer, performer, controller, and disrupter—have been on display throughout this diplomatic process. Because these negotiations are ongoing and largely secret, this section offers only preliminary observations.
Trump the observer was impatient to meet one‐on‐one with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because he presumably believed that this was the only way he could truly assess the North Korean dictator’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Singapore summit with Kim on June 12, 2018, Trump defended the decision to meet his North Korean counterpart: “more importantly than the document [joint communique signed at the summit], I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un. That’s a very important thing” (Trump).
Trump the observer’s belief in the need to get a firsthand understanding of the North Korean situation goes back decades. Consider, for example, the response he gave in 1999 to a journalist’s question about North Korea (NBC News):If a man walks up to you in the street … and puts a gun to your head and says “give me your money,” wouldn’t you rather know where he is coming from before he had the gun in his hand? And these people [North Korea]—in three or four years … they’re going to have those [nuclear] weapons pointed all over the world, and specifically at the United States. … we have a country out there, North Korea, which is sort of wacko, which is … not a bunch of dummies, and … they are developing nuclear weapons. And they’re not doing it because they are having fun doing it; they’re doing it for a reason. And wouldn’t it be good to sit down, and really negotiate something?
Trump the controller sympathizes with authoritarian efficiency (BBC News; Liptak). His meeting with Kim Jong Un—and the manner in which he accepted Kim’s invitation to the Singapore summit without extensively consulting with his principal aides (Baker and Sang‐Hun) suggests that the controller role was predominant. After all, meeting Kim was the only way for Trump to receive a public denuclearization commitment from North Korea’s supreme authority.
Trump’s penchant for control has likewise led him away from the multilateral nonproliferation six‐party talks established during George W. Bush’s administration. Instead, he told a television interviewer, “I like bilateral [negotiations], because if you have a problem, you terminate. When you’re in with many countries … you don’t have that same option” (CNBC). In another television interview, Trump said: “When you get into the mosh pit … with all these countries together, you can’t get out of the deal. And you take the lowest denominator” (Fox News).
Trump first agreed to meet Kim on March 8, 2018, and, with bravado typical of Trump the performer, claimed that he would size up Kim in the first several seconds, and would be willing to walk away from the negotiation: “I think I’ll know pretty quickly whether or not … something positive will happen. And if I think it won’t happen, I’m not going to waste my time” (Associated Press). Indeed, during a White House press conference on May 22, Trump the performer followed his own script in showing indifference about the upcoming Singapore summit. “If it does [take place], that will be great. It will be a great thing for North Korea. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. Whatever it is, it is” (Trump).
Two days later, Trump the performer engaged in a carefully‐choreographed “walking away” from the summit. Thus, the cancellation letter, dated May 24 (Trump), underscored that North Korea needed the meeting more than the United States, stating that the summit was “requested by North Korea,” and stressing that “the world, and North Korea in particular, has lost a great opportunity for lasting peace and great prosperity and wealth.”
Trump then conditioned the resumption of dialogue on improvement in North Korea’s behavior, first accusing the North Korean side of “tremendous anger and open hostility,” while leaving the diplomatic door ajar with “if you change your mind … please do not hesitate to call me or write” (Trump). To dramatize the “walk away” move, Trump had Secretary of State Mike Pompeo read the summit cancellation letter aloud during the opening of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on May 24 (Time).
When the Singapore summit finally took place on June 12, Trump the performer staged a prime‐time handshake with Kim, maximizing media exposure (BBC News). During that meeting, Trump showed Kim a short promotional film, produced by the National Security Council, to sell the North Korean leader on the idea of peace (Morrin). With Trump’s emblematic bravado, the movie began by showcasing the spectacular gains that North Korea would make if it were to accept American denuclearization proposals. In an early scene, a professional basketball player masterfully landed a ball in the net—possibly Trump the observer’s targeted appeal to Kim, who is known to be a basketball aficionado.
Then, the movie offered North Korea a structured choice. What would Kim choose, the narrator asked, “To show vision and leadership? Or not?” Abruptly, the screen switched from glamorous visions of North Korea’s post‐nuclear future to a nuclear explosion and horrifying devastation. “There can only be two results,” the narrator intoned, underscoring that the choice North Korea faces is, indeed, a binary one, “one of moving back, or one of moving forward. … It comes down to a choice. … A great life, or isolation? Which path will he [‘this leader,’ apparently referring to Kim] choose?” (Morrin).
Likely foreshadowing the structured choice he would present to Kim at the summit, Trump the disrupter stated at a pre‐summit press conference: “I think that he [Kim Jong Un] will be extremely happy if something works out. And if it doesn’t work out, honestly, he can’t be happy” (Trump). To make the choice clear in the run‐up to the summit, Trump the disrupter issued both direct and ambiguous threats to diminish the attractiveness of Kim’s existing option, which was to press ahead with nuclear weapons development and deployment. Deterrent threats included the famous message that Pyongyang’s aggression would be “met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before” (DeYoung and Wagner). Likewise, Trump’s letter to Kim, cancelling the Singapore summit, was unambiguous: “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used” (Trump). In the tradition of coercive diplomacy (Schelling), Trump the disrupter also threatened the escalation of economic punishment: “We have many, many sanctions to go, but I don’t want to use them unless it’s necessary” (Trump).
Displaying multilateral diplomatic deftness, Trump worked to persuade China to withdraw support from North Korea. For example, he signaled that Kim could not rely on China’s help if North Korea failed to reach agreement with the United States: “President XI [Jinping] told me he appreciates that the U.S. is working to solve the [North Korea] problem diplomatically rather than going with the ominous alternative,” Trump tweeted (Trump).
As of this writing, the U.S.-North Korean negotiations have stalled, and Trump the performer called off Secretary Pompeo’s August 2018 trip to Pyongyang, again demonstrating his willingness to walk away from a negotiation. Furthermore, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis signaled that the United States was keeping its options open on whether to reschedule the major U.S.-South Korea military exercises that Trump had suspended as an incentive to Pyongyang during the Singapore summit (Lubold and Youssef). This is likely Trump the disrupter signaling to North Korea that U.S. coercive actions were conditional on its nuclear behavior.
Conclusion
In this case analysis, I have sought to distill Donald Trump’s coercive negotiation approach. Trump negotiates by spotting and exploiting his counterparts’ vulnerabilities and then using leverage and bravado to shape their choices. Trump’s coercive negotiation approach can be best understood through the prism of his four roles: observer, performer, controller, and disrupter. These behavior patterns help explain the key elements of Trump’s negotiation style: choose counterparts who, have few or no options, denigrate the attractiveness of the counterparts’ alternatives, use generosity as leverage, negotiate with the boss, be prepared to fight, and present opponents with drastic structured choice’s.
Because Trump is a performer, I acknowledge that one should approach cautiously the analytical value of his public pronouncements as guides to his decision making. I also recognize that decades‐old writings about his business negotiations (in The Art of the Deal and elsewhere) may have limited explanatory power with regard to his negotiation behavior as president. He has been broadly consistent in his pronouncements since the 1980s, however, and I have contextualized these earlier views within his more recent statements.
With regard to Trump the negotiator, I suggest three areas for further research and discussion. First, does Trump really think only about negotiations “at the table,” or is his penchant for ambiguity and secrecy obscuring genuine negotiation prowess—especially when dealing with recalcitrant counterparts, such as the North Koreans? He shows basic awareness of “behind‐the‐table” dynamics—insofar as he sees these as restrictions on his freedom of action as a controller, leading negotiations. Apart from seeking to maximize his leverage by transforming multilateral negotiations into bilateral ones, however, he expresses little interest in negotiations “away from the table”: identifying and using the linkages among various negotiations to achieve the most advantageous outcome “at the table”—a negotiation approach for which Henry Kissinger is so well‐known (Sebenius, Burns, and Mnookin; also see Lax and Sebenius).
The second question involves Trump’s impact on negotiation teaching: with the emphasis on mutual‐gains (“win‐win”) negotiation training in the majority of training programs, should the Trump example encourage more emphasis on understanding and responding to hard bargaining tactics? Richard Shell, in an article in this issue, suggests that, yes, indeed it should (see also Schneider and Manwaring in this issue).
Finally, Trump’s impact on diplomacy is a subject that should inspire extensive research and debate (see also Babbitt; Druckman; Wanis St. John; and Zartman in this issue). Tactically, the ambiguity that Trump practices may be an attractive tool to maximize one’s at‐the‐table leverage, but strategically it has drawbacks with both adversaries and allies. For effective deterrence, adversaries need to know the “red lines” that must not be crossed. (It is possible, of course, that Trump articulates such “non‐negotiables” during one‐on‐one meetings with foreign leaders.) Allies, on the other hand, need reassurance. Coercing allies with threats of abandonment, such as Trump’s threats to leave the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, risks corroding the confidence that undergirds the U.S. alliance system (Kogan).
“I’m different than other presidents,” Trump said in a television interview. “I’m a deal‐maker. I’ve made deals all my life” (CNBC). Given Trump’s self‐identification as a negotiator and the importance of American diplomacy for international security, my aim in this essay is, to quote Graham Allison, to “take [Trump] seriously and not literally” (Allison). This comprehensive synthesis of the forty‐fifth president’s thinking on negotiation hopefully will be helpful to policymakers, citizens, and scholars.