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US President Donald Trump speaks during a Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.

Donald Trump campaigned as a dealmaker. The entire premise of his candidacy was that hed glower across a conference room table and, using his business guy skillz, defeat the enemies of American greatness to win the sweet end of the lollipop for his voters. He seemed to define good governance as little more than shrewd haggling. If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Trump would be the Great Negotiator.

So what kind of negotiator has he been since taking office? Is Trump, as he himself would put it, making good deals, or is he, as they say in modern business vernacular, getting his face ripped off?

Its unfair to grade Trump solely on results at this point, as its early and many outcomes remain in doubt. But we can examine Trumps negotiation ploysthe tactics he wields and the manner in which he wields themto assess how likely they are to succeed over the course of his administration. Again and again with regard to looming negotiations that could define his presidency, Trump has gotten off on the exact wrong foot:

Hes sent confusing signals. He said hed be OK with a one-state solution in Israel, before his U.N. ambassador clarified that only a two-state solution would do.

Hes made bold opening moves but then quickly backed down while receiving no concessions in return. He cozied up to Taiwan in an unprecedented manner, then acknowledged One China policy the instant China insisted on it.

Hes made false accusations that poison relationships. European countries do not in fact owe money to NATO.

Hes been ignorant, boorish, and short-fused. Upon hearing, apparently for the first time, about a refugee deal the U.S. cut with Australia, Trump became furious and hung up on the Australian prime minister.

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But our richest case study so far is Trumps push to pass the initial version of the American Health Care Act. We know Trump was 100 percent behind the AHCA, that he left everything on the field, and that he was the closer, attempting to herd various parties into agreement. We also know that he failedto the tremendous embarrassment of both the White House and the GOP. What can we learn about Trumps negotiation style from the bills spectacular fizzle?

The first step in a winning negotiation, as any MBA course will teach you, is to understand the playing field. You need to burrow into the weeds on picayune issues so you know where opportunities for compromise lie. You need to zoom out and see the larger picture so you can suggest clever trade-offs. You must deeply grok the interests of all the players, and the stakeholders they answer to, so you can predict where theyll bend and where theyll stiffen.

As best we can tell from outside the process, Trump made zero effort to learn anything at all. He never studied the wonky details of the bill, according to reports. He was clueless about the broader history of the debate (Nobody knew health care could be so complicated, he marveled at one point). He never bothered to comprehend other intereststhe ideological objections of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, the practical concerns of the moderate Tuesday Group, the alarm of an American public that gave the bill a 17 percent approval ratingso he could empathize and try to assuage them.

Having been too lazy, or too lacking in attention span, to do basic prep work, Trump then seemed to grow bored of the negotiation itself. Effective dealmakers are known for their patience and stamina, which lets them endure the emotional ups and downs of the process, ignore outbursts, and settle in for the long slog of achieving a lasting accord. Trump, however, grew restless within days after wading into the fray, issued an ultimatum, and imposed a tight deadline with no clear rationale. (Consider that negotiations over Obamacare dragged on for more than a year, while the AHCA give-and-take lasted 17 days.) The vote Trump tried to force never happened, and instead he simply scuttled the process before it had begun.

Trump seems completely unaware of the best practices in the field he claims as his forte.

Its true that a ticking clock can sometimes be a powerful negotiation tool. A person who needs a deal done by midnight is likely to offer deep concessions at 11:58 p.m. In an episode we did about time pressure in Slates Negotiation Academy podcast series, my co-host spoke to diplomat Richard Haass about the tactic.* Haass agreed that being up against a clock can force compromise and focus the mind. But artificial deadlines, like Trumps, can backfire. Haass recalled Northern Ireland talks in which he set a firm date with the intent to jam the parties into an agreement, only to find this impeded a deal. In order to make the compromises we wanted, Haass noted, they had to bring along their own internal politics. And they simply needed more time. We tried to move things faster than the domestic politics of one of the parties would allow us. Which is precisely the problem Trump ran up against with Paul Ryan, who needed far more time to achieve compromise between his warring congressional factions.

Trump has suggested this was all mere prelude and that a new health care bill is still in the offingmaybe even in the next few days. But he made every effort to throw a wrench into potential future negotiations, too. In the wake of his defeat he blithely insulted groups he might need to work with next time by tweeting, for instance, that the Freedom Caucus is not on the team and that We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! He then suggested he might unilaterally end government payments that subsidize low-income peoples health insurance unless Democrats start calling me and negotiatingan empty attempt at extortion that soon withered, demonstrating poor understanding of both negotiation and of the political landscape. More recently, he set another arbitrary deadline, asking all parties to scurry around in hopes of getting something done to improve the cosmetics of the administrations 100-day record. If a health care bill does happen, it will happen in spite of Trump, not because of him.

Given all this behavior, how seriously will anyone take Trumps threats and deadlines next time? Why would you believe that Trump will earnestly consider your interests? Why would you accede to Trumps demands when its clear you can wait him out and bait him into acting rashly? Instead of coolly staring down his foes across the conference table, Trump flipped the conference table onto his own foot, knocked a scalding-hot coffee carafe into his lap, and pelted himself in the face with a wide variety of danish.

People who practice negotiation at the highest levels treat it as a cooperative art. They dont even refer to people across the table as opponents; they call them negotiation partners or, at worst, counterparties. Good dealmakers favor an extended, friendly schmoozing period before making declarations or getting down to brass tacks. They feel out the unstated interests that underlie the stated positions. They dont treat deals as win-lose, distributive battles that divvy up value; they treat them as win-win, integrative collaborations that create more value for everyone. They agree on objective measures so both sides can assess the effects of a deal. They give careful thought to the implementation that will follow a negotiation, because a party that feels bullied or lied to is unlikely to respect the bargain that is struck.

Trump seems completely unaware of the best practices in the field he claims as his forte. When he talks about trade deals, he talks about beating other countries, not working together so both sides profit. He often declares his positions (Mexico is going to pay for the wall) early on, very publicly, before talks have begunwhich both inflames the situation and leaves him no room to make concessions without losing face. He casts doubt on official statistics, which turns negotiation into a hopeless contest of dueling realities. He disparages people and countries hell surely need to work with down the line.

Trump prefers the hardball, win-lose, used-carsalesman approach than the sophisticated dealmaking required to pull off a complex, international agreement.

Instead of doing the hard work of real negotiation, Trump is obsessed with shallow persuasion tactics. He often employs a facile technique known as social proof, which boils down to insisting that everyone else is doing it so you should, too. (Many people are saying is his favorite verbal construction.) He tries to skate by on charm instead of logic. (GOP reps said that in his calls to them during the AHCA fight, he didnt bother to talk policy at allhe just shot the breeze.) He squints, acts tough, talks loud, and insists that people come to me instead of meeting them on metaphoric neutral ground. (By contrast, in our Negotiation Academy interview with super-negotiator H. Rodgin Cohen, he said being gentle and softspoken was an advantage because very few people will give into a bully and, whats more, on the rare occasions you do need to yell, its not lost in a cacophony of noise.) Its like everything Trump thinks about negotiation came from watching bad Hollywood movies.

Trumps defenders argue that he cleverly stakes out extreme positions because theyre only a first offer. Making an outlandish opening bidsuch as Mexico is going to pay for the wallis known as anchoring in negotiation-speak. Its a powerful tactic when your counterparty isnt clear on the value of the thing youre bargaining over, so you can psychologically sway them into accepting the way youve framed things. But its more consistent with a hardball, win-lose, used-carsalesman approach than with the sophisticated dealmaking required to pull off a complex, international agreement involving hot-button issues like border security and immigration. Anchoring is also counterproductive when you back down from your own opening bid while getting nothing in return. See, for instance, Trumps demand to get border wall funding in return for averting a government shutdown. He quickly retracted it while recieving no concessions from the other side. Thats known as negotiating against yourself.

Trumps simplistic ideas about how negotiation works are best exemplified by his impetuous withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This was a complex trade agreement toiled on for eight years by skilled trade negotiators from 12 nations. Trump unilaterally pulled out of TPP while receiving no concessions (from, say, China, which benefits tremendously from our withdrawal) in return. Why did he abandon the agreement? He claimed it was because he favors bilateral instead of multilateral negotiation. I presume this is because dealing with only one counterparty at a time is easier for him to wrap his head around. But multilateral negotiations create space for more nuanced trade-offs, allowing everyone to get what they want. (Think about multiteam sports trades where three teams can solve their problems at once.) With TPP, for example, developing countries in Asia gave us concessions on labor and the environment in return for our opening of Japans market to them. Its easier and more effective to negotiate with big groups, says Caroline Freund, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. With TPP, we were getting a huge chunk of the world to agree to U.S. trade rules. Doing things bilaterally is much less efficient. You need to spend time negotiating each one, taking each one through Congress. Its more difficult, time-consuming, and costly.

All these missteps can be traced back to Trumps fatal flaw as a negotiator: his narcissism. Negotiators get themselves in trouble when theyre blind to the perspective of other parties, says Don Moore, a professor of management at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, who has been writing about Trumps negotiation style since the start of his campaign. I see the Trump administration making huge errors in their engagement with our partners because they have no appreciation of the other sides interests. They speak in ways that imply great ignorance about our partners on the global stage, and theyre deeply arrogant about the rectitude of their own positions. That alienates partners.

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There have been some isolated bright spots in Trumps presidential negotiation approach. He seems to have in mind some kind of deal with China that would involve both trade issues and North Korea policy, which suggests a willingness to look for creative swaps. But perhaps the only element we could call an asset to Trumps negotiation style, in terms of achieving deals, is his complete lack of core principles. It allows him to stay open to any agreement that will let him sign papers, take credit, and hold a photo op. When you dont know where youre headed, notes Moore, any road will take you there. Im still wary about where that approach takes the rest of us.

*Correction, April 26, 2017: This piece originally misspelled Richard Haass last name. (Return.)

See the article here:
Donald Trump Is a Terrible Negotiator - Slate Magazine

Mr. Trump, it was believed, had little time for international alliances, his "America First" mantra indicating scant concern for the views and concerns of US partners. Indeed, it is hard to think of a US president who had worse global media coverage in his opening few weeks than Donald Trump -- with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan.

One hundred days into the Trump presidency, however, the businessman-turned-politician has succeeded in confounding his sharpest critics on several fronts. President Trump is never going to win a global popularity contest, but he is increasingly gaining the respect of America's allies.

A sharp judge of character and an astute hirer of talent over the course of many decades, Trump has clearly benefited from the presence of a highly respected defense secretary, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, an outstanding vice president in Mike Pence, a deeply experienced negotiator in Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, and an imposing new national security adviser, Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

Combined with Mike Pompeo at the CIA and the new rising star at Turtle Bay, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, a very powerful team is representing the US on the world stage, significantly stronger in many respects to the one assembled by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

What is abundantly clear from Trump's leadership team is that the era of "leading from behind" is emphatically over. Ironically, it was the avowedly internationalist President Obama who began the process of US disengagement worldwide, from the initial withdrawal of US forces from Iraq to the closing of American bases in Europe -- an approach the supposedly isolationist President Trump is busily reversing.

In his first 100 days, President Trump has worked to reinvigorate the partnerships with Britain, Israel, Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a host of other countries that were frankly taken for granted during the Obama years. There is a sense in both London and Jerusalem of a new era in relations with the US post-Obama.

What is emerging from the First 100 days of the Trump presidency is a remarkably traditional approach to US foreign policy, based on strengthening long-standing alliances, while bolstering American military presence in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

This, coupled with a willingness to actually enforce "red lines" and put America's enemies on notice -- from Damascus and Tehran to Pyongyang and Moscow -- the Trump administration is looking a good deal more robust than its predecessor. And that is no mean feat for a President whom many critics had casually written off as a showman who supposedly lacked the gravitas or discipline to lead the world's greatest superpower.

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Donald Trump is confounding his critics - CNN

New York Times

Donald Trump's Trade Policy Is in Disarray New York Times President Trump's populist, antitrade deal rhetoric was always hard to believe coming from someone who outsourced production of his clothes and other merchandise to low-wage countries like China. Now it is becoming clearer that he has no coherent plan ... and more »

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Donald Trump's Trade Policy Is in Disarray - New York Times

Over the last several decades, top government officials and even military brass have come to view climate change as a national security issue. Under President Barack Obama, the notion was codified through recognition of the link by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the National Intelligence Council.Now, President Donald Trump, with nearly all the governments climate change work in his crosshairs, is poised to dramatically scale back environmental security programs perhaps eliminating many entirely through dramatic budget cuts.

Many of these programs help cities cope with water emergencies. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, one microbiologist interviewed by ABC News sampled floodwaters in New Orleans and found bacteria linked to sewage at 45,000 times the level considered safe for swimming. Seven years later, Hurricane Sandy inundated East Coast water treatment plants to the point of overflow, releasing a total of 10.9 billion gallons of sewage into waterways and streets along the mid-Atlantic coast. In places like Camden, New Jersey, an economically depressed, mostly black and Latino community with an outdated sewer system, the risk of contaminated water is more routine: Sewage flows into the streets amid hard rains.

At the federal level, the task of helping cities like New Orleans and Camden deal with these water crises falls in part to Homeland Security. Its not one of the departmentsflashiest mandates, but the work, in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, helps to secure public health by stopping toilet water from entering streets, homes, and waterways during extreme weather events.

If youre going to have catastrophic flooding that threatens public health, then thats something we need to look at, said Alice Hill, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and an architect of the Department of Homeland Securitys early efforts at addressing climate change under Obama. To the extent you see chronic seepage of wastewater endangering routinely the health of American citizens, thats something Homeland Security will worry about.

The Trump administration, however, has focused on security in purely military and law enforcement terms, whether through $54 billion in new Defense Department spending or increased funding for immigration enforcement and border protection. Those efforts are likely to come at the expense of environmental security. Despite his defense chief James Mattiss public statements endorsing the links, Trump already issued an order canceling Obamas push to consider climate change in national security planning. And Trumps budget outline portends even more drastic moves away from protecting the nation against climate-related threats.

Among the most draconian proposed cuts, the EPA stands to have about a third of its budget eliminated. EPA programs targeted for wholesale cuts include those designed to protect critical water infrastructure from terror attacks, accidents, pandemics, and extreme weather caused by climate change. A March 21 itemized 2018 EPA budget proposal, first released by the Washington Post, suggested eliminating EPAs $7.7 million critical infrastructure protection program. Although the budget is expected to change dramatically as Congress weighs in, the draft version provides an insight into Trumps conception of security.

The EPAs homeland security efforts provide tools to help water utilities determine risks and plan for catastrophe whether it be an accident that introduces a contaminant into drinking water, a terrorist attempt to access some of the massive volumes of chemicals utilities use to clean the water, or flooding extensive enough to bring down drinking and wastewater facilities.

Camden, where the threat from rain seems ever more immediate than a terrorist attack, hosted a pilot program for one of the EPAs critical infrastructure projects. According to Andy Kricun, head of the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, officials sped up flood prevention efforts after an EPA projection suggested a rapid rise in the Delaware River, according to data local water managers received from the EPA. The EPA helped the city draw up plans to deal with the issue through updating treatment plants, building a sea wall, and installing rain gardens that absorb millions of gallons of stormwater. Kricun said flooding has been reduced as a result.

Alan Roberson, who runs the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, does not see the project as a climate-specific program. The EPA branded it with climate under Obama because that fit the administration, he said, adding that water managers are interested in protecting the water, period. From my point of view, it doesnt matter if your pump station is hit by a tornado or loses power from an ice storm or someone puts a bomb on it the end result is the same.

Yet the climate change-related branding that helped advance the project under Obama has made it a target under the Trump administration. As White House budget director Mick Mulvaneyput it, Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward were not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money. In early April, the EPA closed its climate adaptation program, reassigning four staffers. And the March budget memo would slash 224 jobs focused on climate protection.

Trump has proposed boosting funding for the Department of Homeland Security overall, but none of that money would make up for the proposed EPA cuts. In fact, the proposed DHS budget would reportedly pay for increased border enforcement in part by reducing the budget of another federal agency that helps deal with climate change fallout, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, by 11 percent.

Funding for the EPAs office of civil enforcement would be slashed by 37 percent, according to the March memo. Consent decrees originating inthe office have been key to forcing communities to update their sewer systems, protecting residents from floods of sewage that will worsen with climate change. Roberson, of the drinking water association, pointed to a proposed 30 percent cut to public water system supervision grants, which help local agencies pay for public inspectors. Roberson said the cut would be devastating.

Asked to comment, and EPA spokesperson replied, EPA is evaluating different approaches to implementing the presidents budget that would allow us to effectively serve the taxpayers and protect the environment. While many in Washington insist on greater spending, EPA is focused on greater value and results. The EPA will partner with the states to ensure a thoughtful approach is used to maximize every dollar to protect our air, land, and water.

When it comes to the climate, the Camden Utilities Authoritys Kricun argued that focusing on the idea of climate change misses the point. Our current infrastructure is inadequate to the way the climate is now, he said.

Its a perspective that surely resonates in Camden, where environmental-related human security is already a major worry today. But with the Delaware River rising thanks to climate change, and without effective climate adaptation efforts, the citys problems will only worsen. Instead of helping cities beef up their efforts, the Trump administration is withdrawing a lifeline.

Top photo: Wastewater sits inside a partially operating treatment tank at the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission, Nov. 15, 2012, in Newark, N.J., as the states largest wastewater treatment plant suffered a complete power outage during Superstorm Sandy and pumped hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated and partially treated waste into New Jerseys waterways.

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Donald Trump Is Slashing Programs Linking Climate Change to US National Security - The Intercept

The Trump SoHo building in New York City.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Ethics watchdogs and good-government types were quick to sound the alarm over Donald Trumps apparent violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Even before Trump was sworn in, experts were warning that his continued ownership of his business empire meant that hed be accepting payments from foreign governments in violation of the U.S. Constitution. These could come in the form of payments for hotel stays by foreign diplomats, lease payments for office space from foreign state-controlled businesses, or any number of other ways. The issue is at the center of the firstand to date, most high profilelegal challenge to the presidents continued ownership of his for-profit business.

Josh Voorhees is a Slate senior writer. He lives in Iowa City.

It turns out, though, that Trump may also be violating a different emoluments clause, one that specifically bars him from receiving money or gifts above and beyond his mandated salary from governments right here at home. Via Article II (emphasis mine):

The general possibility that Trump would run afoul of that clause earned a brief mention in the larger emoluments lawsuit filed by the Center for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, or CREW, in January, but it has remained mostly an undeveloped afterthought. On Wednesday, however, an investigative report from Reuters uncovered the evidence needed to turn the question from the general to the specific:

The payment flow chart is a little complicatedas is usually the case given the nesting doll of LLCs and trusts that make up the Trump Organizationbut it boils down to this: State or city-run pension funds in California, New York, Texas, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, and Missouri pay millions of dollars per quarter to CIM, which then turns around and pays a portion of that money via a subsidiary to a pair of Trump-owned companies to manage, market, and operate the SoHo hotel. According to the most recent publicly available numbers, the Trump-owned businesses bring in an estimated $9 million a year from the CIM deal.

The Domestic Emoluments Clause differs from its foreign counterpart in at least two important ways beyond where the emolument is coming from. First, while the foreign clause covers all office holders, the domestic one is focused exclusively on the chief executive. Second, while the Constitution allows Congress to make exceptions for some foreign emoluments, theres no such loophole for domestic ones. The rationale for including the domestic clause was to prevent a stateor even Congressfrom buying a favor from the president. The fact the framers felt it necessary to include two different emoluments clauses should tell you how serious of a concern they thought this was. In this case, the fear would be that other states might invest in this fundor some other one that also does business with Trumpin order to gain Trumps favor, or even avoid his ire.

Still, this might not be an open-and-shut case. As with foreign emoluments, there is the question of standing for any legal challenge. And as we saw with the convoluted workaround Trump found to maintain his government lease for his D.C. hotel, its possible the president can carve out some wiggle room if he were to restructure his company in a way where he did not receive any of the cash while still in office. It will ultimately come down to how broadly a court is willing to interpret a clause with little precedent. As Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, a Washington public advocacy law firm, put it to Reuters: Were in largely uncharted territory given that past presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid the kinds of issues were now confronting. Trump, however, appears content to sail headlong into them.

Know anything about a potential conflict of interest in the Trump administration? DM Josh Voorhees on Twitter, or email him at josh.voorhees@slate.com.

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Donald Trump May Also Be Violating a Different Emoluments Clause - Slate Magazine (blog)