Blog 127 – Donald Trump the Great Negotiator

Blog #127 Donald Trump the Great Negotiator:

     The Secret of his Model

     Phase One. Have your staff in secret negotiate a meeting with your negotiating opposite number. Select an occasion and a setting that is photogenic.Meet your opposition there, shake hands, and become buddy-buddy with him or her. Tell the world how well you get along together, praise him or her effusively, Make a photo op out of it.

Phase Two. In a private meeting ideally just one to one, find out what your opposite most wants in the negotiations by asking your opposite directly. Tell your opposite that what is wanted is feasible, and promise it will be considered. Tell your opposite a few things you want that are likely easiest for your opposite to give. Forget about it, and move on.

Phase Three. Arrange a cordial handshake while arranging for further negotiations by staff. Announce publicly a complete private agreement with a promise that almost everything your opposite wanted is feasible and will be considered, holding back just enough and fudging key points so it won’t be seen as a complete surrender. In return, get a promise that everything you want is feasible, and a promise it will be considered. Proclaim a success for the negotiations, with a final embrace and warm words towards your opposite, and arrange a suitable photo op.

Phase Four.

Forget about it, and move on. Consider firing anyone in the cabinet or head of a major federal agency who is publicly taking the results of the foregoing negotiations seriously. Or expressing doubts that they should be implemented.

Phase Five.

If further delay becomes politically embarrassing, find something minor but concrete that you and your opposite can do to demonstrate progress, with a written firm commitment to implement if found feasible in detail. Example:  a freeze on any negative changes by either side for a stated time. Announce it publicly, with appropriate photo op.

Phase Six

Forget about it, and move on.  Consider firing anyone in the cabinet or head of major federal agency or acting as an advisor who is publicly taking the results of the foregoing negotiations seriously.

Phase Seven.

When the time for the freeze, for example, runs out, arrange for a further high-level meeting. Find something concrete that you and your opposite can do to demonstrate progress, and put in writing as a commitment, such as establishment for a permanent joint consulting committee between you and your  opposite to work on details. Arrange for a celebratory photo op. Announce the result as a great deal, perhaps one of the greatest deals ever made. In North Korean negotiations, the well developed model, Trump: “the encounter “historic” and “very legendary.” Forget about it, and move on

Phase Eight, Phase Nine, Phase Ten.

Forget about it, and move on. We have good relations. There are other priorities. Any criticism in partisan.