The core competence of Donald Trump, in his own view and in the eyes of many US voters, is dealmaking. He happily tells us how good he is at it. His name appears on the cover of business bestseller The Art of the Deal, though his co-authorship, like many things about him, is disputed.
We all do a lot of negotiating. At work, we negotiate with customers, suppliers, colleagues and prospective employers. Outside work, we strike deals over everything from a new car to our share of a restaurant bill after unilaterally ordering lobster thermidor. What can we learn about dealmaking from Trump’s negotiating style?
Trump is an aggressive man who uses tariffs as a bludgeon to extract concessions or simply to display strength. At the weekend, he announced tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and aluminium imports. A few days before, Canada and Mexico only deferred 25 per cent tariffs on all their exports to the US by participating in a US drug smuggling clampdown.
Trump is a useful case study in the tactics of unreasonable people. We all encounter these. The monster could be a team leader intent on slashing your annual bonus so their own will rise. Or they could be a buyer who, at the last minute, demands a 10 per cent cut in the price of your house.
There are different kinds of “unreasonable”. We can narrow it down for the 47th president of the US. Eugene Kogan, a US consultant and academic, categorised him as a “coercive negotiator” in a smart 2019 analysis. Last year, a group of US mental health professionals described Trump as “a malignant narcissist”.
The pop psychologists had not conducted a full diagnosis. That would have required Trump to stretch out and tell more than 200 of his sternest critics how he felt about his childhood.
However, “coercive narcissist” seems like a credible composite description. You probably know other people this defines. Their furniture sometimes gives them away. They will sit on a kind of throne during haggling at their office. You will squat on a low, leatherette sofa. It will emit a defeated sigh as you sink into it.
One difficulty in negotiating with coercive narcissists is that they pay zero attention to academic wisdom on best practice. The latter is the subject of wide study and a branch of the training industry. Its foundational 1981 text is Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury.
Fisher and Ury championed “principled negotiation”. Here, counterparties collaboratively define the elements of a deal that each is flexible or inflexible on. The aim is to maximise the so-called “zone of potential agreement” or “Zopa,” resulting in a win-win transaction.
“Batna” stands for the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement.” In a negotiation, both sides are supposed to understand the Batna of the other. This is nothing to do with “Banta,” in which young Londoners cheekily critique each other’s hairstyles or football teams.
As Kogan noted in his essay: “Trump relentlessly seeks to enhance his own leverage by weakening his counterpart’s Batna.”
Here are some other key characteristics:
Overestimates own competence: Most of us do this. Trump shows that excessive overclaiming invites unwelcome exposure. He promised to settle the Ukraine war “in a day.” Not so far. Similarly, if you tell your boss you could fix a troubled business unit “in 24 hours”, she may reply “go on then” and stand back, waiting for you to fail.
Lacks empathy: Trump’s attempt to establish US sway over Greenland shows some understanding of Greenlanders’ ambivalence towards Danish sovereignty. But he underestimates the sympathy that “losers” created by his aggressive style evoke in others. Crush your neighbour in a boundary dispute and your local popularity may plummet.
Ignores evidence: Trump has alleged “massive” fentanyl smuggling from Canada. The amount seized by federal authorities on the Canadian border last year was just 43lbs, around 0.2 per cent of the total. This prompted Scottish comedian Susie McCabe to joke: “I’ve seen that [much] at a house party in Glasgow.”
Risk tolerant: The US president exploits the risk aversion which is a common human trait. It is particularly evident at the multilateral negotiations Trump hates. In contrast, Trump prides himself on leaving possible horrendous outcomes on the table.
Much has been written on how to deal with unreasonable people. Counsel ranges from displaying firmness to handing your opponent token public victories in return for quiet concessions.
The most realistic advice is to “walk away”. This is hard if you are the prime minister of Denmark. It is easier if you are trying to sell your house and a would-be buyer thinks you should discount the cost of plumbing repairs in the price.
Aggressive dealmakers do not feel grateful for concessions. Instead, they feel excited at “winning.” They will ask for further concessions, so they can feel like they are winning some more.
Trump’s hard-ball negotiating style is anachronistic, thanks to widespread buy-in for principled negotiation. The only reason he can keep the angry flame alive is that the US, as a super power, is an unavoidable counterparty.
Thankfully, in our own lives, we have choices who we deal with. When we encounter people with the characteristics described above, the best course is to avoid engaging with them in the first place.
Jonathan Guthrie is a writer, adviser and a former head of Lex. jonathanbuchananguthrie@gmail.com
