Trump is exposed as the failure he is by two strongly worded articles by two of America’s leading newspapers.
Trump likes to present himself as the greatest deal maker that ever lived, even taking time to pay someone to co-write a self-aggrandizing book titled “The Art of the Deal.” However, as The New York Times and The Washington Post recently explained – Trump is anything but a deal maker. Indeed, it would be fair to call him the master of The Art of the Fail.
The New York Times
The New York Times published an article earlier this month analyzing Trump’s bravado:
Trump likes nothing more than presenting himself as the ultimate deal maker, the master negotiator who can translate his success in business into the worlds of politics, policy and diplomacy. “That’s what I do, is deals,” he said one day last month.
Except that so far he has not. As he threw in the towel on immigration legislation, saying that Republicans should give up even trying until after the fall midterm elections, Mr. Trump once again fell short of his promise to make “beautiful” deals that no other president could make.
His 17 months in office have in fact been an exercise in futility for the art-of-the-deal president.
The New York Times listed a few of his blinding failures:
No deal on immigration. No deal on health care. No deal on gun control. No deal on spending cuts. No deal on Nafta. No deal on China trade. No deal on steel and aluminum imports. No deal on Middle East peace. No deal on the Qatar blockade. No deal on Syria. No deal on Russia. No deal on Iran. No deal on climate change. No deal on Pacific trade.
Continuing, The Times reported that Trump fails at the simplest of tasks:
Even routine deals sometimes elude Mr. Trump, or he chooses to blow them up. After a Group of 7 summit meeting this month with the world’s leading economic powers, Mr. Trump, expressing pique at Canada’s prime minister, refused to sign the carefully negotiated communiqué that his own team had agreed to. It was the sort of boilerplate agreement that every previous president had made over four decades.
The Washington Post
The Washington Post took a deeper look at the ramifications of Trump’s failure, particularly in the arena of foreign diplomacy in an article published in late May of 2018.
The Washington Post began writing that, although “Trump assaults democratic norms, lowers the level of political discourse, spreads prejudicial animosity and undermines objective truth,” there is “another immediate worry” – “that the supposed master of ‘The Art of the Deal’ will make horrible deals that impair American security and economic prosperity.”
Continuing, The Washington Post explained how this might play out in the diplomatic arena:
Trump is the last person you would want negotiating complicated, consequential international deals with aggressive authoritarian leaders whose positions are firm if not intractable and who have studied the president carefully. Trump has a quartet of disastrous personal qualities that raise the potential that he’ll give away the store for the sake of a “win.”
The Post went on to detail the exact nature of Trump’s failures (which we have abbreviated below using bullet points).
- “First, he is almost entirely ignorant of the details of policy. If he’s pressed to say what was actually in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, few observers (even Republicans) think he could come out with more than a few disjointed generalities. As a result, he does not know (as we saw in his meeting with legislators on immigration) what is important to his side, let alone the other side.”
- “Second, Trump has no fixed ideology to guide him. He is not, for example, enamored of human rights… He operates by slogan (“America First”). To call him an isolationist or an internationalist is folly; he is for whatever is best for Trump.”
- “Third, Trump is a narcissist to beat all narcissists. Compliment him, roll out a red carpet or call him your ‘friend,’ and he turns into a needy supplicant, overly solicitous and naively trusting in the word of cunning adversaries. His impulsive behavior and hunger for personal gratification prompt him to disregard advice (‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE’) and go for the immediate satisfaction of impressing others.”
- “Finally, Trump is weirdly contemptuous of our allies. He suspects that they are cheating the United States, making us look like patsies. He disdains anything his predecessors have accomplished, including their success in forging alliances, trade deals and cooperative ventures. Instead, he admires strongmen and craves their approval.”
The Washington Post concluded their article with the following admonition/plea:
In sum, the dangers posed by a rogue president are serious and multifaceted. The best his advisers can do would be to limit his one-on-one time with adversaries and impress upon him that he doesn’t want to be labeled a sucker. We should wish them well in their effort to restrain and guide Trump; our security and prosperity depend on it.
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