Posted on 05/02/2025 6:10:00 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump, the real estate developer turned commander in chief, is laying bare his style of diplomacy in the early weeks of his new term: It’s a whole lot like a high-stakes business deal, and his No. 1 goal is to come out of the transaction on top.
The tactics are clear in his brewing trade war with Canada and Mexico, in his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine and in his selection of the first country he will visit in his second term.
“President Trump approaches diplomacy and engages in a very transactional manner, with economics as the foundation and driving force behind international affairs,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the president’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, explained at an event in Washington this past week.
For Trump, it’s about leverage, not friendship; dollars as much as values; and hard power versus soft.
It’s not just a matter of negotiating style. At stake is the post-World War II international order as Trump’s actions raise doubts about American leadership around the globe.
He’s shaping a foreign policy that’s more inward looking and conscious of the bottom line, dismissing American soft-power levers such as the U.S. Agency for International Development as dubious and riddled by waste and suggesting that the United States might not defend fellow NATO members that aren’t meeting defense spending benchmarks set by the alliance.
Politics and presidents to a certain degree are all transactional. But Trump, who helped make himself a household name by burnishing an image as an intrepid real estate dealmaker, is taking it to another level as he navigates an increasingly complicated world.
The Republican president, in his previous life as a real estate titan, saw every deal as one in which there were clear winners and losers...
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
his No. 1 goal is to come out of the transaction on top.
NOT win/lose
and not like Biden which was lose/lose
Great negotiators are the ones who make everybody happy.
Find the win/win compromise.
And, that’s Trump aim.
Not they win, we loose as had been the policy of most of his recent predecessors.
There should be a general set of rules set from time to time by Congress.
If the EU gets a better deal from Trump than Australia, then the Australian Parliament may refuse to ratify Australia’s deal with Trump.
“The Congress shall have power...To regulate commerce with foreign nations”
The “shall” means Congress can change international trade terms at any time of its choosing.
The terms of Congress should include the US/EU right to sell to a country a product that may be generally sold in both the EU and US generally or service that may be generally sold across US state lines as well as generally between EU countries.
If the foreign country doesn’t accept the terms of Congress, trade would be limited to bartering US products for the foreign country’s products.
Somebody listened to Dan Bongino.
it’s hard to believe that AP came out with a lengthy analysis of President Trump that wasn’t “Orange Man Bad”; overall, it was a thoughtful article, though i got a real chuckle out of Professor Dumbarse who said international negotiations should be like a tied soccer game where one JUST manages to survive:
“But diplomacy, especially in a more complicated world, might be more like soccer,” Frantz said. “Sometimes you just need a tie. Sometimes you need to just survive and move on.”
that’s definitely loser talk, along the lines of the bully in school and the victim are equally at fault ...
The Art Of The Deal..er
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