Trump Negotiations Academy

Caroline Glick writing for Jewish World Review explains how to understand Trump's deal with Kim. She says this later in her analysis, but foremost, the agreement that's signed between Trump and Kim is a piece of paper with the word "agreement" on it.

That's all. And now the pressure is off to achieve a signed agreement and they have all the time that is needed to work on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And time is on Trump's side on not on Kim's side whose country suffers under Trump's continuing sanctions. It is Kim with the urgency to act quickly.

Trump does the opposite of what previous negotiators did, the opposite of what our experts expect. the opposite of what European observers need to see for things to make sense to them. They don't see what they know about negotiations so Trump does not make sense to any of them.

This is irrelevant to Glick's analysis but while reading her describing our experts I was reminded of an article I read thirty years ago about television comedy writers. The piece started out with a writer pointing out his vehicle, a beat up old Chevy, then the other comedy writers burst out laughing because his actual car is new Mercedes. No comedy writer has an old beat up automobile. That was their joke for themselves. Turns out all their résumés were lists of failed t.v. comedies. That's how you achieve success in that field, by building up a list of short-lived television programs and boom you're a successful comedy writer with portfolio. Their success is based upon experience with a string of failures. So too with our negotiation experts.

Dennis Ross, who mediated the negotiations between Israel and the PLO that led directly to the largest Palestinian terrorism campaign against Israel in history, and Wendy Sherman, who negotiated Bill Clinton’s horrible nuclear deal with North Korea in 1994 and Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, as well as all their esteemed colleagues have taken up their pens and stood before the cameras and clucked about how Trump’s Singapore show is amateur hour.

*  “How could they agree to a presidential summit without first guaranteeing its end product?”
*  “Trump’s showmanship is dangerous and counterproductive.”
*  “At the end of the day, for this to work, Trump will have to copy Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran”

They're telling us what they know. And all that they know is failures. That's their experience, what makes them experts. Just as Hillary Clinton was the most qualified because she was both Senator of N.Y. and Secretary of State. Never mind about performance in those positions, it's her simply being there that makes her an expert.

After analysis of the dangers of negotiations Glick gets to what Trump actually did in Singapore. She understands what we saw in Trump's observable behavior with our own eyeballs and contrasted against our expert's vaunted experience with failures. There are three dangers.

1) You have no guarantee the other side will agree to a deal. Historic examples given.

2)  Democratically elected leaders have greater tendency than dictators to be convinced their political survival depends on delivering a deal. Historic examples given.

3) Because of #2, the likelihood that a Democratically elected leader will accept a terrible deal skyrockets. Historic example jumps out and punches you in the face.

With these risks in mind, we observe Trump.

1) Play up your counterpart's failings, do not make light of them. Don't praise Arafat as a man of courage. Don't praise Hassan Rouhani as a moderate. By praising their opponents, Israelis and Americans justified making concessions to their counterparts without reciprocity. This shifted the burden of proving good intentions onto themselves rather than their opponents who have no credibility at all.

2) Intimidate, don't woo your opponent's friends. Trump's three predecessors begged Chinese to rein in the North Koreans and that handed leverage to Beijing. To curb N. Korea even temporarily, the Chinese demanded US concessions and got them. Whereas Trump threatened China by linking US-China trade deals to Chinese assistance in curtailing N. Korean aggression and agreeing to US goal of denuclearizing China's client state. Trump proved his seriousness by lobbing 58 missiles at Syrian targets in retaliation for Assad's use of chemical weapons while he was having dinner with President Xi Jinping. Xi cut off N. Korean coal exports to China and limited fuel shipments from China to N. Korea. One month later Kim announced he wanted to meet with S. Korean counterpart.

Bully!

3) Make it easy for your side to walk away from the table and hard for the other side to jump. Trump did this through a series of moves. He had James Mattis threaten to destroy N. Korea. Trump coupled the threats with the largest increase in defense spending in memory. Trump repeated continuously that he had no idea whether or not talks with Kim would be productive. Finally, Kim insulted John Bolton and Trump canceled the summit. Trump's polling did not suffer, rather, his numbers improved. Kim learned the price of failure and Kim learned Trump isn't afraid of walking away over something so small as an insult. And that is a new observed negotiating experience that our experts themselves do not comprehend, far less internalize.

4) Appoint hard-line negotiators. Bolton is the most outspoken critic of nuclear diplomacy with North Korea in Washington. Bolton opposed every diplomatic initiative and agreement that every administration adopted with Pyongyang. Literally no one in Washington is more skeptical of the chances that an agreement with N. Korea will succeed than Bolton.

And there was Bolton sitting at the negotiation table in Singapore.

In the past, American and Israeli leaders engaged in negotiations have given their opponents a say, even veto power over the members of their negotiating teams. These past leaders used their team roster as another tool to appease the other side, while ignoring the concerns of their domestic constituencies.

Trump did the opposite of what our experts expect. After setting up the talks in a manner that minimizes the cost of walking away, and maximizes the cost for Kim, Trump chose negotiators that would minimize the chance of reaching a bad deal while assuaging and encouraging his constituents that he can be trusted. Both Trump's supporters and his detractors know that so long as Bolton is at the table, the chance of the U.S. agreeing to a bad deal is near zero.

5) Control the urgency of time. Reporters in Singapore were shocked when Trump announced that he and Kim were about to sign an agreement. They were lead into a grand hall for a formal signing ceremony. A quick look shows the agreement is nothing but platitudes.

Trump's critics quickly pointed out there is nothing to the agreement. It doesn't make sense to them. It's fake. But they're missing the point. The entire point was to produce a piece of paper with the word "Agreement" on it.

By signing an empty agreement, Trump took all the time-pressure off of himself and his team. They have their deal. He signed it. In ceremony with fancy pens. Now they have all the time that they need to do what it takes to get Kim to give up his nuclear arms. While time works against Kim. Sanctions against N. Korea will remain in place until after N. Korea has denuclearized verifiably. Assuming Kim cares about his economy then Kim will want to reach a real deal quickly as possible.

Trump's critics increased their attacks against Trump's summit with Kim but everything they say discredits themselves. The only reason Trump is even here dealing with N. Korea is because his predecessors failed through feckless diplomacy. The things that make these critics experts are the things that do not work.  As these expert critics persist it becomes clear that their fear is not that Trump will fail, rather, their fear is that he will succeed where they failed, they, of expert experience and diplomatic renown, and he, the loudmouth real estate bullshit artist and reality show celebrity from Queens who couldn't care less what they think of him or his ways.

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