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Extortion, Not Deals

Extortion, Not Deals

Trump is Incompetent at Making Deals

Trump’s negotation tactic is all sticks and no carrots. He punishes first, then asks those he punished how they would like to change their behavior to appease him. This is a terrible long term strategy for these reasons:

  • Others may work out a deal with Trump in the short term, but they also begin working on ways to strike a deal with some other country or organization because they don’t like working with the Trump in the USA.
  • Deals struck with animosity are more expensive. The best arrangement comes when two entities get along well and trust one another to not cheat on them. But if trust is lacking, the two sides must expend a lot of resources to insure the other side is not cheating them. These transactional costs are what leads people, countries, and businesses to seek deals elsewhere. You don’t need pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer to write an agreement when your neighbor wants to borrow your ladder if you trust your neighbor, but if you don’t trust your neighbor you do need to expend some resources to protect your assets.
  • When the other party feels coerced into a deal they are more likely to cheat on the agreement or find nuances and loopholes in the agreement they can exploit to their advantage. This is not typically done amonst friends and those you trust.
  • Trump is famous for not honoring the deals he makes. If he can get out of paying what he promised, then he will. If he believes he can fail to live up to his part of the agreement and then drag out the lawsuits against him in court until after he dies, he will do so. If he doesn’t like a deal, like the trade agreement he called lousy and bad for America that he authored with Mexico and Canada during his first time, then he will break the agreement. If other Presidents or lawmakers struck a deal on behalf of the United States, he feels no obligation to on it. In short, Trump can’t be trusted to honor his end of the bargain.

If Trump Doesn’t Have the Upper Hand, Doesn’t Have More Cards, He Won’t Play

Trump is fortunate to rule a country as powerful as the U.S.A. He never negotiates because he is incompetent at it and he knows the other person is a much better thinker than he is. He knows he must avoid a face to face conversation to negotiate because he knows he will lose such negotations unless he can turn it into theatre for television audiences. He is simply not smart enough to consider all the pros and cons and nuances of agreements. He only knows what he wants. That is why he tweets what he wants or shouts it out from his bully pulpit, then waits for his minions to talk to the other parties to work out the details. Trump threatens and punishes, he never asks what the other side might want in exchange or makes any offers. Threats only. As noted above, this makes long term relationships impossible.

Some examples of Threats made by Republicans

Some examples of Intimidation by Republicans:

Many actions are taken by the Republicans to intimidate and silence others.

  • 2025.5.20 DOJ charges Democrat with assault

  • 2025.4.14: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-wants-cbs-off-air-after-new-60-minutes-out-of-control/ar-AA1CSe4K

  • 2025 April:

    • Bill Owens, the executive producer of CBS News’s “60 Minutes”, resigned. He said he was no longer able “to make independent decisions”. In October Mr Trump sued CBS for $10bn, alleging that its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris was an act of “election and voter interference”. The controlling shareholder of Paramount, CBS’s parent, wants the Trump administration’s approval for the sale of the company.
    • Rounded up groups of people and sent them to a prison in El Salvador (CECOT) known for torture and starvation without any form of due process;
    • Sent a squad of plainclothes, masked officers to arrest a graduate student whose visa was revoked because she co-signed an op-ed;
    • Prevented a well-respected media outlet from covering major White House events because they refuse to use the term “Gulf of America” to describe the “Gulf of Mexico;”
    • Mused about revoking U.S. citizenship from certain individuals and deporting them to countries they have never even visited;
    • Targeted perceived opponents using the full power of the government to coerce compliance from universities and law firms; and

  • Convinced the Attorney General to appear on Fox News to threaten people who oppose the President’s most significant donor with prosecution.

  • 2025 March - House speaker johnson threatens judges to “rule like we want you to”

  • 2025 March - Trump shares personal details to make attacks easier on his opponents