The Art of the Decline

Vivek Viswanathan: “As dealmaker in chief, Trump has turned U.S. trade negotiations into a series of deals, haggled with Nvidia and AMD on China exports so America could get in on the deal, and called an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement the ‘ultimate deal.’ He covets the Nobel Peace Prize, ostensibly as a tribute to his dealmaking prowess.”

“Yet Trump has little to show for his methods: no end to the war in Ukraine, no new modus vivendi with Russia or China, no progress on Middle East peace, no breakthroughs on trade, and certainly no Nobel Peace Prize. The recent rupture in relations with India follows breaches with Europe and Canada. Mexico may be next.”

“Why is Trump’s dealmaking backfiring so spectacularly? The answer may lie in his dismissal of an important bit of American dealmaking folklore: namely, that a deal is a deal.”